Support scholarship: tourette together

Our goal in the last  GlobalGiving campaign was to focus on our collective energy to bring awareness to communities about Tourette syndrome.  Since the March challenge, we have kept busy with our community by engaging student volunteers, participating in Tourette Awareness month, and helping our students with Tourette syndrome access the scholarship application and submit on time.

Volunteer engagement turned out to be such a fun way to introduce a new group of young people to our friends with Tourette syndrome.  It gave everyone an opportunity to learn about the biology of how Tourette syndrome affects the body.  It gave our students a chance to talk about their own symptoms and teach other teens, without the disorder, something new.  It fostered interest, curiosity, support, empathy and many conversations that go a long way to ending stigma about misunderstood symptoms.   After hanging out together, we got to work making art to express how we might represent Tourette syndrome.  We hope new people will post about the disorder now that they have new friends to connect with and support.  Using art to bridge communities was a great tool and we also have new stories to post on social media. We thank all our volunteers for great ideas, new handmade art, and fun times learning about each other.

Tourette awareness month was May 15-June 15 and we used this month to concentrate on re-connecting with our Tourette community.  Since the 18-month long pandemic restrictions, we have not physically seen each other.  Parents need support, children need friends and we were all ready to find a way to re-connect while being safe.  Once we were allowed to engage in outdoor social activities with distancing, we arranged for a meetup between vaccinated families.  It was food for the soul and allowed us to celebrate all we had been through with isolation.  Our time together in person, though short, corroborated what researchers are now sharing:  The Tourette community as a whole suffered through the pandemic and the result was lack of services, exacerbated symptoms, and regression of previously acquired skills and tools used to deal with anxiety, OCD, ADHD, depression, learning disabilities, frustration, and more.

Tourette Awareness month is always a time to talk about Tourette syndrome, post about it and highlight each other's successes and challenges.   It was our time to push our students to get their scholarship applications completed and turned in to be considered for a monetary award for fall 2021 post-high school vocational programs, college and university admissions.  We re-committed to making our scholarship process easy to access using an online application platform called Kaleidoscope.  Using an online application allows students to apply with their documents all uploaded to one place; they can access the information and their application from anywhere and easily guides them to complete all the requirements for the scholarship review committee.  Using an online platform also allows scoring the applications and awarding the scholarships easier and faster for our independent committee.  We are proud to announce that upon our scholarship closing date, we have 25 applicants from all over the US. Awards will be announced in August. 

In all that we do, your belief and support in our mission are most cherished.  Real students, with impactful stories and a new world ahead of them keeps us working hard to raise awareness,  advocate for our community with Tourette syndrome and ultimately, give scholarships to very deserving students who will change the way Tourette syndrome is regarded.  With your help, we work to support them.  Thank you!!