A simple suggestion from a Blaxland boy keen to help his younger brother has snowballed into a full blown campaign for autism awareness stretching across Sydney and beyond.

Dylan Forster has always looked out for his six-year-old autistic brother, so it was no surprise when he came up with the idea to sell wristbands at Blaxland Public School to raise awareness and money for the condition.

With support from his school that initial thought has grown into a two-week series of events and expressions of interest in similar campaigns at eight Sydney schools and one as far as Albury.

The spark for the campaigns occurred when Dylan, 10, came across a bunch of the wristbands in the glovebox. (more…)

THREE friends from Lutterworth High School helped raise hundreds of pounds for a young girl who had to have both her hands amputated when she was a baby.

Kate Peach (11), Lauren Sanford (11) and Becky Gemerk (12), heard about the plight of Tilly Lockey – a five-year-old girl who contracted meningitis when she was little more than a year old and had to have her hands amputated as a result – and decided to help raise money to help buy and upkeep her prosthetic hands.  (more…)

A small business class at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka is gearing up for a commercial venture this spring. The students have organized a company, appointed officers, and sold shares of stock. Their product – which will be out soon – is an elastic, $5 wristband with the words “Living on the Edge.”

If all goes well, the students should earn (more…)

REDLANDS – There are recurring words in people’s memories of Melissa Joy Dietzel: amazing hugs, a smile and joy. The same was said many different ways Saturday afternoon at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Pioneer in Redlands.  Marnie Reynolds sang, “Scatter sunshine all along your way. Cheer and bliss, and brighten every passing day.”

Dietzel’s sister, Amber Taylor, spoke of Dietzel’s love of the color lime green.

“In high school there were times it was all she wore, and she encouraged others to wear it, `because that is the best color in the world.”‘

So it was that friends and family filled the sanctuary wearing (more…)