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Autism Ribbon B.E.S.T. Services Sponsors First Annual WALK FOR AUTISM!

Held March 29th, 2008
at Palm Desert Civic Center Park

Signed-up Walkers:	518 (Goal=200)
Amount Raised:	$34, 234.26 (Goal=$25,000)

B.E.S.T. Services, Inc. truly appreciates all the community support for the first annual Walk In The Park. It was great to see so many families in the Coachella Valley come together in support of autism. The shirts and hats that everyone created to join their teams together were inspiring. Diamonds in the Rough, Alejandro's Angels, Tanner's Team and Team Harley had great shirts, just to name a few. Hogan's Heroes had fabulous hats! CLICK HERE to view the photos from the event!

We have great plans for next year as this was a completely rewarding experience for all the staff of B.E.S.T. Services, Inc. as well as their spouses or significant others that they pulled into help in this great cause. I want to personally thank each member of the B.E.S.T. Services, Inc. Team that for many months helped to pull all of this together.

We will update you as soon as we set the date for next year and look forward to your participation in the 2nd Annual Walk In The Park 2009!

April 10, 2008

Dear Friends:

On behalf of the Coachella Valley Chapter of the Autism Society of America, I would like to thank you for your generous support of our first ever Walk in the Park for Autism, hosted by BEST Services. Whether you were a walker, donor, or volunteer (or all three!) your contribution to make the walk a success was invaluable.

Everyone that participated on the day of the walk helped to make our goal of increasing Autism awareness in the Coachella Valley a great success. We exceeded the original goal of 200 walkers by more than 200% - an amazing achievement in the first year of any event. The media coverage that we received was extremely important to us as an opener to National Autism Awareness Month.

Thanks to your generous donations, we raised an amazing $34,000, which will directly benefit children with Autism and their families in the Coachella Valley. Thanks to BEST Services’ generous act of absorbing the administrative costs of the walk, the full amount of your donation will be used to benefit the local Autism community.

These funds will be used to help to fulfill our mission to provide support and education to local families affected by Autism, in the form of support groups, workshops to give parents the tools they need to help their children acquire skills and to advocate for their child, special activities for our children to help to improve their skills in a variety of areas, and additions to our resource library, to name a few programs. As we receive no money from the federal or state governments or the national Autism Society of America, we rely solely on grants and the generous support of the community to provide these programs.

It is so encouraging to see the support the community has offered us in our mission to spread awareness and provide assistance to our local families affected by Autism. If you would like more information about Autism, or would like to know more about the programs that CVASA provides, I invite you to call our Resource Center at (760) 772-1000, or to visit our website at www.cvasa.org. And I’d like to offer a special “thank you” to BEST Services, who made the walk possible in the first place, and have pledged to make this an annual event. I hope that we can count on your continued support to make next year’s event a success!

With Warm Regards,

Misty V. Hogan
Secretary
Board of Directors, Coachella Valley Autism Society of America