Puzzle Pieces and Autism Awareness

Concord University's Collegiate 4-H club spent the week raising funds and awareness for autism by offering personalized puzzle pieces for $1.
Photo by Ronni Wood

Concord student organizations are often involved with philanthropy, and with April being National Autism Awareness Month, it gives these organizations another cause to support. Concord’s Collegiate 4-H and the Bonner Scholars Human Rights Issue Based Team spent the week of April 6 holding fundraisers to support Autism Awareness.

The Collegiate 4-H club is not new to serving others. “Part of the 4-H pledge is ‘giving your hands to larger service’, and we try to accomplish that as often as we can,” said Melinda Hatfield, a senior at Concord and president of the organization.

The 4-H club is no stranger to various philanthropy opportunities. “Every semester, the Collegiate 4-H club tries to do a philanthropic project for different organizations. Since April is Autism Awareness Month, we wanted to raise awareness and allow people to give back too,” Hatfield said.

They hosted a fun, unique fundraiser and channeled the most well-known autism symbol. “One of the iconic symbols of autism awareness is a puzzle piece, which represents the diversity of people affected by autism, as well as the complexity of autism itself. People were able to pay $1 and they got to decorate a blank puzzle piece with markers. As more people buy puzzle pieces, the puzzle starts to get completed,” said Hatfield.

The organization was planning to try to get the table running once again for the week of April 13 through April 17, but if not, they were planning to repeat the fundraiser near the end of the month.

“All of the money that we made from this project is going to the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, which is a non-profit that supports public policy, community, and advocacy for people on the autism spectrum. This nonprofit is also run by people that have autism,” Hatfield said.

The Bonner Scholars Human Rights Issue Based Team was also running a table in the student center. “Our Issue was Human Rights but we decided that since it was Autism Awareness month we wanted to contribute something to autism,” said Hannah Crum, a sophomore at Concord and the leader of the issue based team.

“To show that everyone has a right as a human to feel strongly towards any issue they choose, we assisted students or faculty in making of bracelets or keychains according to the issues that they felt strongly about. We also sold Puzzle Pieces hearts made by Chris Meadows since this is Autism Awareness Month,” said Crum.

The group is planning to send the money to a local nonprofit foundation called the Denver Foundation. The Denver Foundation was created by Dreama and Bob Denver. Bob Denver was also known as Gilligan from the TV show Gilligan’s Island.

The Denver family is very familiar with autism. “They have an autistic son named Colin, which inspired them to help other families with children that have autism. I know that every Christmas the foundation buys iPads for the children so that they may be able to communicate with their families,” Crum said.

“We thought since it was April it was fitting to donate to this wonderful foundation that does have an effect on our community locally,” said Crum.

Crum also wanted to thank her team for the work they put in to the project. “I just want to add that without my wonderful co-leader Austin Wickline and my wonderful group members Kegan Nealen, Carmen Ross, Jessica Chavez, Ashley Hale, Yingjun Liao this would not have been possible to make this project a hit. Thank you guys you are awesome!” Crum said.

Keep looking for the Collegiate 4-H table to come back to the student center before the month of April is over. If you are interested in learning more about the Denver Foundation, you can visit their website, www.bobdenver.com/the-denver-foundation/. To learn more about the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, you can visit their website at autisticadvocacy.org/.