[By Grace Brasil, Hands4Hope Youth Board Vice President]
The Hands4Hope – Youth Making A Difference Youth Board is excited to announce the beneficiary of its 2021-22 youth board service project will be Walk with Austin. After researching two impressive agencies benefiting children with challenges, the board members chose Walk with Austin in order to provide more opportunities for disabled children in the local area by helping raise funds to build an all-abilities playground off Bass Lake Road.The first opportunity to help support fundraising efforts is the carriage rides in the El Dorado Hills Town Center; the last weekend is Dec. 17 & 18. The Hands4Hope Youth Board will sell carriage ride tickets 5-9 p.m. in the lower theater plaza outside Cold Stone Creamery. Proceeds will benefit Walk with Austin and the Hands4Hope Education Program. It is a great way to kick off the holiday season with a magical ride through El Dorado Hills Town Center with your family or a significant other. Prices range from $15 for two to $30 for a group of six.
The Hands4Hope Youth Board began its service project investigative process in September. Members researched different organizations within the need areas they were most interested in helping, including children with disabilities and children with chronic illness. Through their research, they decided on two organizations they wanted to support — Walk with Austin and Keaton’s Child Cancer Alliance — and invited representatives to speak at a meeting to ensure that they fit the designated criteria and to learn more about them. Holly Reininger, founder of Walk with Austin, came in and spoke with the youth board and a group of five employees came to speak from Keaton’s Child Cancer Alliance. Although very impressed with both presentations, the board ultimately decided to choose Walk with Austin.
Walk with Austin is a fairly new nonprofit created by Reininger to benefit children with disabilities, including her own son Austin. The organization’s goal is to create a park at Bass Lake in El Dorado Hills that will be accessible to all. There are no current parks that meet the needs of children with disabilities in the area and this park would fill that void. Mothers like Reininger are forced to travel as far as the Bay Area in order to find a park that has accessibility and most are still not truly all inclusive.
“This will be a pivotal year for us in fundraising for the all-abilities playground as the El Dorado Hill Community Service District hopes to break ground at Bass Lake in late 2022. We’ve currently raised $80,000 and have a goal of $250,000 to supplement the CSD’s existing traditional playground budget. We are thrilled that the Hands4Hope Youth Board has chosen to support Walk with Austin for the 2021-22 project,” said Reininger.