BURLINGTON - The Centre for Diverse Learners (CDL) hosted a night of prizes, informative discussions, food and fundraising at the Burlington Golf and Country Club last night (Sept. 26), with comedian Rick Green speaking on his experience with ADHD.
The event served mainly as a fundraiser to increase the number of students who CDL, a non-profit organization that provides programs and information to neurodivergent children, could support through their programs.
Carolyn Rankin-Boutin, executive director of CDL, spoke at the event on the importance of the work that the non-profit provides to the community.
“When we use the word neurodiversity, we don’t decide who that is,”she said. “If our programs can help a child, then we want to help that child. When we did a study on the effectiveness of our program, our eight-week math program, on average, led to eight months of skill and knowledge growth. Our program works, and if we want to support students and our community for the long-term, we need to support the work that CDL does right now.”
Some 100 people attended the fundraiser and could donate to CDL in multiple ways, including a silent auction, a raffle and a coin-flipping game for prizes. Some of the prizes from the auction were a soccer ball signed by the Forge FC team, tickets to see the Toronto Maple Leafs, a $500 wine tasting in Niagara-on-the-late and a one-week vacation to a cottage in Ellicottville, NY.
The organization was hoping to raise $10,000 during the event, which would be enough to provide programs for all 20 children currently on the CDL’s waitlist.
Green, who is most well-known for co-creating and co-starring in The Red Green Show, was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 47 and has spent the past 20 years sharing information and support with people while spreading his story of how difficult life can be as a child with ADHD.
“Growing up, the only advice we get is ‘try harder,’” Green said. “As if we’re not trying as hard as we can already. As if we’re not working our hearts out and still failing, and we don’t know why. We’ll talk about why, but that ‘try harder’ advice is so hard and so useless, and eventually when we try hard enough, we give up. Someone with ADHD hears negative feedback, by the time they get to adulthood, 20,000 more times than their peers.”
Green brought several of his report cards that he had received from kindergarten to grade eight as part of his presentation, reading comments from past teachers saying that he needed to pay more attention and work on his writing skills.
The comedian also spoke on the different types of neurodiverse individuals and the ways he learned to deal with his own differences.
“When you find out what’s going on, you figure out your own flavour,” he said. “Every one of us is different. We may fall under a specific label, depression, anxiety, but everyone has their own little nuances and tweaks to it.”
Green and his wife, Ava, have created multiple shows, programs and resources about neurodiversity, including the TotallyADD website, short videos on neurodiversity and two programs titled ADD & Loving It?! and ADD & Mastering It!