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It was the night before Christmas Eve when I opened my email to find one with the subject line: Boston Marathon. I opened the email from Marie Duggan, the founder of Technology for Autism Now (Team TAN), inviting me to run the 2015 Boston Marathon on behalf of her charity. Not to be melodramatic, but for me, this was nothing short of a Christmas miracle. I was selective about which charities I applied to run for. I wanted the training runs that I do in the cold,the rain,the snow, at 4:30 a.m or 8 o’clock at night, every step had to be about something bigger than me. As clichéd as it may sound just as I started giving up hope that I wouldn’t run Boston this year,Team TAN found me.
Technology for Autism Now is a 100% non-profit charity staffed by volunteers.
They provide assistive technology to students with Autism. Currently, they are a pilot program serving 100 students and 47 teachers in three Boston Public Schools.
I couldn’t have asked for a charity that is a better fit for me. Through the years in my job I’ve worked with several families who would have loved the opportunity to provide their child with the software or devices needed to help them communicate, but it was too expensive. Technology for Autism Now gives kids the chance to express their wants, needs, opinions, thoughts on a class discussion; the list goes on and on. It’s easy to take for granted that while some of us may be” too shy” to add to a conversation, without this technology these kids have no choice but to not participate, and their ideas remain unspoken.