10-year-old rallies for autism cure
Published: May 21, 2007
Fifth-grader Julia Hoyda wrote a letter to all the classes at Kaneland McDole Elementary School this month to talk about autism.
It’s a subject she knows well, as her 13-year-old brother, Matthew, is autistic.
“I said it makes some easy things harder for him,” the 10-year-old Sugar Grove girl said.
As captain of her family’s team for the Walk Now fundraising event in Chicago this Sunday, she asked students to donate to the cause to find a cure for autism.
“Last year, we went and walked, but this year we signed up as a team,” she said. “That makes me feel better because we are helping.”
Even before the donations from school were counted Friday, she had already surpassed her goal of $500 from family and friends.
“I think it’s really cool that a lot of people are helping out,” she said.
She came up with the idea after a classmate held a similar drive last year for a multiple sclerosis fundraiser. She got approval from the school’s principal and teachers and wrote the letter for her fellow students explaining what she wanted to do.
Julia’s mom, Cathy Hoyda, said the siblings are especially close, and Julia can sometimes get through to Matthew, an eighth-grader, when no one else can.
“She’s been his therapist and his best friend,” she said.
Julia’s donation page can be reached through going to www.walknow.org, then clicking the Chicago date on May 20, and searching for the Hoyda name under the “Donate” heading.
Julia said when she grows up she wants to help find a cure for autism, but she’s hesitant about saying she wants Matthew cured.
“It wouldn’t be the same,” she said. “He wouldn’t seem normal, like he is now.”
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