Happy New Year, everyone!
We had a wonderful 2024 and we look forward to all that is in store for 2025! Let’s walk down memory lane and review some of our highlights from 2024.
Accessible Faith Initiative
We provided 28 Sensory Toolkits for places of worship interested in becoming more autism friendly at the Together Conference, hosted by Together We Care. Our Board President, Tonya Nash, was a speaker at the conference and presented on, “Promoting Autism Awareness in Your Faith Community.”
Our Accessible Faith Initiative Toolkit had over 1,000 views this year. The resource will be updated this spring.
In addition, we attended an Autism Walk and Family Fun Day, which was sponsored by Fellowship Bible Baptist Church in Warner Robins, GA. We hosted a booth and educated people about autism resources.
Due to our partnership with Rising Above Ministries, we were able to give away a free ticket to By the Brook.
Several of our handouts were translated into Spanish. You can find them on our Resources page.
Our YouTube page was updated with several “How to” videos from past webinars.
Manna from Heaven
This was a big year for Manna from Heaven! We received a lot of support from our local grocery stores, which completely funded the initiative this year! Because of the generosity of Publix and Kroger, we were able to bless 54 autistic people with $50 grocery store gift cards to buy food for the Thanksgiving holiday season.
To help streamline the process for us and our recipients, we moved to an online application process. This helped us to ensure a quicker response and an easier way to determine eligibility.
Cheerful Giving
Our Cheerful Giving initiative provides sensory supports for autistic persons in need. Recipients chose from a list of over 200 items and could pick one item that costs up to $50. We were able to bless 60 autistic persons with sensory gifts!
These gifts included sensory chairs and swings, sensory lamps, weighted blankets and vests, sound machines, special clocks, building blocks, tents, and so much more!
This initiative is definitely one of our favorite highlights from 2024! We were so excited when we received a photo of one of our handsome participants with his weighted vest. He made it look good!
The Cheerful Giving initiative also transitioned to an online application to help reduce processing times and provide a speedier delivery for our recipients.
Hopes for 2025
We’ve had some great highlights from 2024! In 2025, we plan to continue the work of all three of our initiatives. In addition, we will focus more on recruiting volunteers and seeking grant funding. We are a very small nonprofit organization and we can certainly use more manpower and funding to ensure that we can continue this important work.
In 2025, we would love for you to consider making a monthly tax deductible donation to the Autism Faith Network so that we can ensure the stability of our programming. It can be done several ways:
- Donate using our Online Giving Portal.
- Donate to our nonprofit organization via PayPal Giving Fund.
- Mail a check to: Autism Faith Network, Inc., PO Box 73122, Newnan, GA 30271
If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out our Volunteer Form.
We greatly appreciate your support in 2024. We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without YOU! Please continue to spread the word about our work and feel free to share our posts on social media.
Wishing you and your family a healthy, happy, and prosperous New Year!
Autism Faith Network Board of Directors