Today, the day I launch this fundraising, is April 2nd 2020 - Autism Awareness Day. In honour of that, I'd like to take this opportunity to start raising money for ACCT (Asperger's Children & Carers Together), a charity I volunteer with, and who have helped me a lot over what will be the past five years in August.

For those who don't know, ACCT run clubs for young people with Asperger's and other forms of autistic spectrum disorder - these include ACCTivate (for 5-12-year-olds), the teenage club (for teenagers, surprisingly!), and more recently ACCTing Out (for over 18's), amongst many other things. These currently aren't running as normal because of the current pandemic, so I still want to help them - and hopefully this fundraising will be a good way to do so.

In August 2015, I discovered ACCT for the first time when I started attending their teenage club. I very quickly grew to love going there. The years I went to teenage club, I met and befriended people who I am still friends with today, friends I probably wouldn't have met were it not for teenage club. Whether knowingly or not, ACCT helped me through some very tough times - I would not be where I am today without ACCT, both socially and just in general.

I now volunteer at both ACCTivate and Teenage Club, which is an absolute dream come true. And I now attend ACCTing Out, which is also wonderful. They have helped me out so much, as well as so many other people - it truly is an honour to be able to volunteer with them. And, as previously mentioned, whilst the country's current situation means that ACCT's clubs can't run as normal, I still want to help in whatever way I can, and I hope this will help in a big way.

The shave itself will be happening on Wednesday 8th July, around 7pm(ish) - we'll be broadcasting it live from home on YouTube, which you will be able to watch at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNPlV0ST54c

Thank you all for supporting this fundraiser and a truly wonderful charity. Feel free to share this, ACCT is a cause who have helped so many people and they deserve all the love they can get!