Students with autism can apply for scholarship honoring Queens teen Avonte Oquendo
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Applications are open for the sixth annual Avonte Oquendo Memorial Scholarship, named in honor of the 14-year-old Rego Park boy with autism who tragically drowned in the East River in 2013.
Thousands took part in an exhaustive 4 ½-month search in western Queens after the boy vanished from the Riverview School in Long Island City and his body was discovered on the shore of College Point.
The scholarship awards $5,000 to a student on the autism spectrum or a student who has a close family member with autism to pursue higher education, a cause important to the Oquendo family and the law firm that represented them.
The attorneys at The Perecman Firm, who represented the boy’s mother Vanessa Fontaine in a wrongful death lawsuit, have committed to keeping his story alive and helping students pursue higher education, something many in the autism community are not able to make possible due to the rising costs of higher education.
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“Self Acceptance is a process not a performance”
“You are autistic enough. And you always have been”
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity.
18 Feb 2021, 4:28 am
