Author Archives: Sophie

About Sophie

Sophie is the pseudonym of our webmaster, mother to a ticapalooza-fantastic teenager.

Youth Ambassador Summer 2018

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Congratulations to Ezra Daly-Griffen !!

This year the Tourette Association of America is hosting a second Youth Ambassador Training. TAA of Greater NY State is very proud to announce that one of our youth members has been selected to attend this training. Congratulations to Ezra Daly-Griffen of South Dayton, NY. Ezra is a student at Pine Valley Central Schools.   For those of you who have attended Camp Ticapalooza, you will surely remember Ezra, our fabulous drummer. Ezra has been very involved in our chapter for several years, coming to many of our chapter events, sitting on a youth panel at a conference for educational personnel, and attending our camp annually. He is always willing to volunteer and lend a helping hand with whatever needs to be done. This training will be held July 13-14, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. Ezra will be traveling to San Antonio with his mom, Jessamine, one of our long-time and fabulous camp counselors. Ezra’s older sister, Willow, was selected as the chapter Youth Ambassador in 2016 and attended the training in Washington, DC.

We wish Ezra and his mom safe travels to San Antonio and our congratulations on being selected to represent our chapter.

We are so very proud of you, Ezra!!

Youth Ambassador 2018

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Congratulations to Miki Brauch !!

Miki Youth Ambassador 2018

TAA of Greater NY State would like to announce our selection for Youth Ambassador for 2018, Miki Brauch.  Miki is the daughter of Robert and Midori Brauch and is a 16 year old junior at Williamsville East High School outside of Buffalo.  She will travel to Washington, DC with her mom in February to attend the TAA Youth Ambassador Training Day.  She will also be spending a day at Capitol Hill with all of this year’s Youth Ambassadors from across the country to lobby for causes that affect all persons with TS.  We had several excellent applicants this year, which made the committee’s choice very difficult.  We thank all of the youth who applied.

Miki has attended our chapter’s Camp Ticapalooza for several years, has spoken on youth panels for chapter workshops, maintains a high academic record and is a great advocate for herself and others. We are very proud of Miki and know that she will do a fantastic job representing our chapter in DC and beyond.

Western NY Support Group Announces 2018 Meetings

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The Western NY Support Group will be meeting on the 4th Tuesday of each month. Two groups meet simultaneously, one for parents/adults and a supervised activity group for kids.  Times, dates and location are listed below.

Western NY Support Group Meetings

Kenmore Library

160 Delaware Rd., Kenmore, NY

7:00 – 8:30 PM

The first three meetings have been scheduled for

Tuesday, January 23

Tuesday, February 27

Tuesday, March 27

We will be listing the meeting dates for our other support groups across the state in the near future.

We are also planning a bowling party in the Western NY area for later this month.  We will be confirming the date, time and location in the next couple of days and will email everyone on our membership list a flyer with all the details.

We hope to see many of you at all of our upcoming events.

Chapter Member Presents Forum about Tourette Syndrome at the NY District Kiwanis Club Convention

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On Saturday, August 26, 2017, in beautiful Lake Placid, NY, our chapter member Christina McCormick, who happens to be the President of the Amherst Kiwanis Club, presented a half-hour forum on “Children with Tourette Syndrome,” as part of the annual Kiwanis Convention for the New York District.

Chris tells us:

“The New York District Kiwanis Governor Elect’s upcoming Governor’s project will focus on children who have disabilities. One of the spotlights will be on TS and all its associated disorders. There are two main goals for this spotlight:

  1. bring awareness about Tourette Syndrome to the public
  2. have individual Kiwanis Clubs focus on a service project for children with TS

“This is an exciting initiative from our Governor-Elect and it will be her focus in her 2017-2018 Governor’s year. Local Kiwanis clubs around the state can participate, and our goal is to get information out there to raise awareness of TS, and hold events for kids with TS.”

Chris and her husband, Shawn, have been very involved in the Tourette Association of Greater NY State for many years. Shawn currently serves on the chapter board. We are very grateful to Chris for initiating this presentation and the exciting opportunity that the chapter has to spread awareness of TS. We are very proud of Chris for all of her hard work on this. Chris and Shawn have a son with TS.

Congratulations on your presentation, and thank you, Chris!