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Raider Nation cares: Oakland Raider fans raising funds for autism awareness

On Friday, August 15th the 66th Mob is going to be sponsoring a fund raiser for “Autism Speaks” at Sidelines Bar and Grill in Modesto, CA. That will be the day that Jarrod Cooper and the rest of the Raiders’ special teams will be sticking it to Chris Carr and the Tennessee Titans. It will be a chance to help a great cause and watch the Raiders tune up for the regular season.

Its easy to think of autism as something that happens to others, or to picture Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man rambling on about K-Mart, Wapner, and counting cards in Vegas, but it is a real disorder that affects real people. One of the chief organizers of this event, Candy Padilla, in fact, had it touch her life when her son was diagnosed. Here is her story reprinted with permission:

I have a 9 year son, Art who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2. Like many parents, we didn’t recognize the symptoms at first. We thought he might have had a hearing problem. He use to bang his head on the ground a lot. He was always going to the doctor’s because of ear infections. His beginning speech just disappeared all of a sudden. I use to think he didn’t like me because he literally didn’t like me holding him or would push me away. At the time I worked at a daycare and another lady who worked there had a daughter who worked at a place that diagnosed children and suggested I have Art tested. My first instinct was “No he doesn’t have autism”, but after I looked up information about it I soon realized a lot of the symptoms matched his behavior.

After several tests Art was diagnosed. Although he wasn’t severe, I still felt heart broken, sad, scared and angry at the same time. I mean here I was taking all the precautions during my pregnancy. I wasn’t a drug user or smoker. I just felt it wasn’t fair.

So we began intensive in-home therapy. Trained people would come to my house and do exercises with Art. They’d practice the average things in life that many of us don’t think about like brushing his teeth, potty training, clapping, smiling, showing emotions with facial expressions, making sounds, etc. Sounds like simple everyday tasks, right? Well not for a child with autism. We put alot of blood, sweat, tears and hours and hours and hours into trying to teach Art how to do simple tasks, how to behave, how to show emotions, how to speak and most of all how to live a normal life. I’m not kidding when I say these people were in my house 8 to 12 hours a day, Monday through Friday and occasionally on the weekends. I had to quit working to be at home, which I don’t regret. I never had the house to myself, but in the end it was all worth it.

Art is now going to be in the 4th grade. He is in a special day class (not an autism class) and mainstreams a few hours of the day in a general ed class. He’s very bright, good at math and has no behavior issues at school. Most people who do not know he has autism wouldn’t even think he did. He is very friendly, as most of you Raider fans know. He loves his Raiders, the fans and life in general. He’s changed my life in so many ways and I am thankful he was put in it. I would not change him for the world.

The event will be held on August 14, 2008 at Sidelines Bar and Grill in Modesto, CA from 4-6pm. Sidelines is located at 2801 McHenry Between Rumble and Floyd. Come on out, watch the game, and buy a few raffle tickets.

If you would like to help out, they are looking for donations of items for the raffle. If you are able to donate, or have questions, contact Candy at Candycane1973 at aol.com.

Hoping we can help this great cause here at TFDS

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 12:33 am and is filed under 2008, Raiders News, Raider News, 2008 Raiders Preseason, Raider Nation, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.