Mom sets $5,000 goal for September autism walk
Date: 8/1/2012
By Debbie Gardner
debbieg@thereminder.comWESTFIELD — Becca Matthew wasn't shocked when her 2 ½-year old son, Jesse, was diagnosed with autism this past March.
"It actually was not [a surprise] because I had been fighting for him since he turned one," Matthew said. "I knew something was wrong and the doctors kept brushing me off, saying 'don't worry' and 'boys are slower'."
With Jesse's regular pediatrician on maternity leave, Matthew said she found herself describing her son's troubling symptoms — he was slow to talk, he walked on his toes, a "red flag" for autism, and around his first birthday he began exhibiting severe meltdowns that included banging his head on the floor or walls — to a different doctor at each appointment. After eight months of research and questioning and presenting information, Matthew said she finally got a doctor to agree that "maybe something was wrong" with Jesse.
"It was nice to have a final answer, but we already knew," she said.
In May — short two months after Jesse's diagnosis — Matthew refocused her energies toward the fight to improve the life individuals coping with autism, registering a team — Jesse James and the Outlaws Walkers — for the 2012 Western New England Walk Now for Autism Speaks at Stanley Park on Sept. 29.
Naming the team after her son — his middle name is James, and she said he lives up to the outlaw moniker — Matthew and her husband Tom set an initial goal to raise $2,500 for the walk, but quickly raised it to $5,000.
"It sounded like a good number for us. It was big and it was a challenge and I'm always up for a challenge," Matthew said.
So far her team — which now numbers 17 family members, friends and co-workers — has raised more than $2,000 through a series of activities that have included a tag sale, a vendor and craft fair and a table outside the Westfield Wal-Mart, where the team collected donations from shoppers.
"We have a couple of more things coming up to help [raise our total]," Matthew said. "I'm a motivated mommy."
Among those events is a second tag sale at her home, 49 Apple Orchard Heights, on Sept. 1 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
"Lots of friends are getting together and cleaning out and donating [items] and I've got a garage full," Matthew said.
She said individuals who can't make the tag sale, but would still like to support the Outlaws could make a donation through the team's Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/TeamJesseJames or at the Autism Speaks website,
www.walknowforautismspeaks.org/wne/jessesjourney.
Though this year's walk is still two months away, Matthew said she is already working on ways to make the Outlaw team's donation bigger and better next year.
"I'm doing this for us and for other families," Matthew said, praising the team of seven specialists that provides therapy for her son for a total of 24 hours Monday through Thursday every week. "I feel bad for other families that are going through this [because] depending on where you live you can get tons and tons of services, or you can get less.
"We're very lucky to be living in Westfield," she said. "The services [for Jesse] are incredible."
According to the website,
www.walknowforautismspeaks.org, the non-profit organization Autism Speaks "is dedicated to increasing awareness of autism spectrum disorders, to funding research into the causes, prevention and treatments for autism, and to advocating for the needs of individuals with autism and their families."
