Autism Epidemic

Litsa and I (and no, that's not us to the left) were one of four guest speakers at the 3rd Annual Autism Awareness Gala, held on November 8th, 2008.

Right now Autism Spectrum Disorder is more prevalent than juvenile cancer, muscular dystrophy, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. The 3^rd Annual Autism Awareness Gala, hosted by Melissa Vitulano at “Le Crystal” on Henri Bourassa, raised $33,000 to benefit the Montreal Children’s Hospital Autism Clinic.

Above are Mr. Joey Elias and Ms. Caroline Sequin, the emcees during the night, with Joey entertaining the packed reception hall with his jokes and personae.

 But before we get to the night's events, let me take you a bit behind the scenes. 

Litsa, the guru of positivity and getting people to say 'yes', contacted many and spread the news about the Gala's purpose. Although the Gala had their own committee and hostess, we felt helping ascertain the event's success would only help the overall cause, which was to bring autism awareness and to raise funds. 

We spent countless days and hours cutting and pinning over 400 autism ribbons. That night, watching everyone walking around with our pins hit us, not with pride, but with a sense of duty that perhaps we possibly contributed to educating one more person in understanding about autism - Autism Awareness Campaign has begun.

Although Litsa's part of the speech we fine-tuned contained twelve pages and mine only one, my nerves were at an all-high. The day before, calm as can be. Driving to the reception hall, I kept running the speech over and over in my head. It was only standing beside Litsa, listening to her deliver and punctuate passages with such conviction, that my nerves left me. I actually felt a bit disappointed that I chickened out with only one page. I vow next time to commit to two pages. And from the looks of it, Litsa and I will be delivering quite a few speeches in 2009. More on this at a later date. Watch our homepage for updates. And here we are. Litsa is the curly haired Greek Goddess and I'm holding on to the podium, mulling my speech in my head. At this point, to be honest, the nerves had disappeared and I was looking forward stepping to the microphone. Why? Because we had captured the audience's attention. Our speech impacted many according to the claps echoing in the hall. Being the first speakers, we needed to set the tone for the night. 

Stay tuned for more coverage on the night's event. We'll showcase the motivational speech by Canadians ex-coach Jean Perron, the moving speech from Senator Jim Munson, and research updates by Dr. Eric Fonbonne.

But before we end, click on OUR SPEECH to read it in its entirety. 

 Part Two of the 3rd Autism Awareness Gala