I am very excited about launching our new Woodstock Chimes for Autism Charitable Chime™ program, especially as World Autism Day approaches on Wednesday, April 2nd. A while back we were contacted by a family from Toronto whose eight year old son, Tyler, is high functioning autistic and has a passion for windchimes. We were thrilled that not only does he love windchimes but he has the good taste to prefer Woodstock Chimes over all others! I was so touched when the family recently drove eight hours just to visit us. We produced a video of his visit which we’d love for everyone to see and share using hashtag #TylersStory.
Tyler Outside
Tyler flipped out when he saw our testing area outside with hundreds of chimes being checked for weather-ability. I was even more touched when he spotted me and ran up to give me a hug. His focus on windchimes is absolute. I gave them a tour of my music studio which is the home of thousands of instruments, large and small, old and new. Tyler honed in on every one of the hundreds of windchimes to the exclusion of everything else. I even tried to play some Bach for him on the marimba but he continued to search for and ring chimes. He has been studying our website for years and is truly an expert on our company and products. We held a challenge to name chimes just by the sound and I had to concede to his ability to identify every one of them. I was able to hold my own, but was considerably slower at doing it! It’s all in the video. I must admit to getting a little teary eyed every time I watch it.
Woodstock Chimes for Autism
We were so inspired by his story that we decided to develop the Woodstock Chimes for Autism. One hundred percent of our profits from the sale of this chime will go to benefit autism research and treatment. We collaborated with a production company to produce this wonderful video telling Tyler’s story to help promote our give-back program. Please take time to look at the video and go to our website page devoted to this program: www.chimes.com/autism. I was thrilled to have Jamey Wolff of the Center for Spectrum Services featured in the video. We are also quite fortunate to include an interview on that page of a world renowned autism expert, Dr. Kenneth Bock of Bock Integrative Medicine.
Tyler & Garry
After learning about Tyler’s story, we have been contacted by other families with similar situations. We look forward to hearing from more individuals and families. If you have a story, please contact us, through the links found on at www.chimes.com/autism. We hope to be a partner with others in the pursuit of research and treatment for this condition which affects so many young people. If you’re so inclined, we would appreciate you spreading the word by passing this video on to your friends and family and for using the social networks to promote the project, using the hashtag #TylersStory.
