The “Light it Up Blue” national campaign to raise autism awareness has landed a check for Columbia’s Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment Disorders.
Marathon Building Environments and Fresh Ideas Food Service Management presented seven-hundred and fifty dollars to the Center today.
Thompson Center coordinator Sheryl Unterschutz says the money will help benefit families needing financial support for weekly therapeutic sessions.
“An individual, a child, who has autism, who has been diagnosed early on often will need anywhere from twenty to forty hours a week of intensive therapy,” s aid Unterschutz.
Fresh Idea spent a week selling cake pops to raise the funds. Strategic Management Director Jami Jones says the sale initiative was the company’s idea of community outreach and raising awareness.
Jones said, “We had never participated in a fundraising event for the Thompson Center and this was just another way for us to shed light on a worthy cause.”
In a recent CDC study, one in eighty-eight children are affected by autism.
