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Only 5 days left to meet our 2016 fundraising goal. Please help us spread the word about how people can make a meaningful difference in the life of a girl with autism!
GNO is more than a social skills group, it's about establishing meaningful relationships and empowering all girls and women regardless of disability. Think about it...your friends aren't just a group you meet out for dinner. These relationships make a significant impact on our lives, sharing in joys and providing support through difficult times. Helping these girls with autism make connections early on, across time, and at critical time periods could be life changing. GNO has done just that for Julia and Mariana! They met at GNO in 2013...eventually became best friends....and are now college roommates! Their story illustrates a meaningful difference! Hear from these girls and share GNO with others who could help create stories like this for all girls!
GNO sends a big THANK YOU to WP4KU for hosting the event last month and allowing us the opportunity to share our program and our girls with your members and the community. Thank you for helping us reach our November fundraising goal!!!! Most of all, thank you for recognizing that building social competence and developing relationships is critical at all ages and that girls and women with autism deserve a Girls Night Out!
We are gearing up for some GNO holiday events. Our younger girls will be getting together to decorate cookies and play games and our teens and young adults will gather for a progressive style dinner and great conversation. We are grateful to interact with so many incredible families and will be sharing stories about our GNO girls across the next 30 days. Thank you to Colonel Bob, an incredible advocate and father, for speaking at the WP4KU event. He shared this photo of his daughter and her GNO friends celebrating her birthday for the second year in a row and to demonstrate the potential impact programs like GNO can make in the lives of these girls and young women. Watch and share the short video from the WP4KU event.
Make the GNO store the place everyone wants to shop! Help us purchase items the girls really want to buy (iTunes cards, snacks, nail polish, anime, accessories, and personal requests!) and you can help girls reach their potential. Stocking the store with stuff they want means they will work to earn more bucks, and thus meet their goals!
Peer volunteers earn community service for participating in GNO intervention groups. This means spending their evening once a week with GNO for 8-12 weeks and some responsibilities between meetings. Peers incur some expenses by participating in activities and meet at a variety of community locations. Help make this incredible experience available to young girls trying to make a difference!
GNO includes a variety of materials designed to support skill building within GNO sessions and to increase the likelihood participants engage in social and self-care skills throughout their day. Each participant receives a GNO planner, which includes information on targeted skills and personalized supports to increase independence and achieve goals (steps and pictures, goals, tips). Girls get tips for conversation starters at each session and to use outside of GNO.
Help us provide ongoing social events and opportunities for girls to build relationships. Community events allow past, present, or future GNO participants to make new friends, boost social skills, and feel success within a social activity and connecting with other girls. Help us build lasting relationships with community partners. (Thank you Bare Minerals, Paul Mitchell The School, and Kirmayer Fitness for years of hosting GNO!)
Help support participants who cannot afford the program but who really need a Girls Night Out. Intervention groups include 8-10 girls that meet weekly at locations throughout our community. This is sometimes the only social activity on their calendar for the week and provides an opportunity to connect with others and establish relationships.
Help create opportunities that can make a meaningful and lasting impact in the lives of girls with autism and related disabilities, their families, and our community. Imagine the potential impact for a young woman with autism if these types of supports and connections began in elementary school and continued across development.