When Thomas Trezza noticed Crossroads School in Westfield — the school his son attended that specialized in education for autistic children — lacked necessary supplies, he came up with an idea to have a golf event to raise money for them, and the road to Trezza's own organization began.

To date, the Drive for Autism Foundation — run by Trezza, his family, friends and volunteers — has raised $313,500 since its start in 2002 to support school-based organizations that cater to providing education for autistic children, Trezza said.

"The first Drive for Autism and Drive for Autism II raised money exclusively for Crossroads School," he said. "Since we were so successful, we decided to create a foundation with the goal of being able to help more than one school."

The New Providence organization, which runs out of Trezza's home, announced last week its distribution of grants totaling $48,000 to six different organizations.

This year's grants — made possible through fundraisers like the annual golf outing, concerts, family bowling nights, raffles and silent auctions — were awarded to e dri, a town organization; Union County Educational Services Foundation/Crossroads School in Westfield; Educational Partnership for Instructing Children in Paramus; Eden II/Genesis Programs and and Seton Foundation/Mother Francheska Elementary School in Staten Island and The Children's Institute in Verona, Trezza said.

"There are larger numbers of kids who need services and the schools are getting squeezed at the state and federal government, so organizations like ours are very important to their ability to provide the education and special services they provide," he said. "We feel privileged to be able to provide this money to these schools."

Each organization applies by sending a wish list of materials they need and programs they wish to fund, he said.

"We look at their numbers and compare them with what we have to give out." Trezza said. "We do the best we can to support the wish list entirely."

Organizations use the money to purchase materials such as laptops, educational toys, health and fitness programs and programs for social skills, he said.

Many of these organizations could use the money because purchasing materials that enhance learning for children with autism are sometimes out of their reach because of state and federal budget constraints, Trezza said.

"These schools rely on fund-raising for a lot of their goods and programs so we are like Santa — they send us a list, and we do the best we can in for filling it," he said.

Kim Coleman, Superintendent of schools  of the Morris-Union Jointure Commission — a collaborative regional public school district — said the organization will use the money to purchase materials such as physical fitness Nintendo Wii games, picture books for the school libraries, personalized pencil holders, slant boards and chewy tubes, oral motor devices designed to provide practice biting and chewing skills for children.

"It'll benefit our children greatly because it really enhances the educational materials we use in the classroom," Coleman said. "[The Drive for Autism Foundation] has been really generous in the past years, and we're fortunate for the grant this year."

One of the most fun uses for the children is purchasing a short cut dye set, which allows students to make greeting cards that parents, faculty and staff purchase as a fund-raising effort, he said. This event is happening now, and will continue this week.

"It's a great fundraiser," he said.

Trezza's son Ryan was diagnosed with autism at 2 years old. When he organized the first golf outing in 2002, the foundation's main event, it originally began with just family and friends, he said. But in the last five years, more than 220 people have attended the event each year.

"Each year more people become aware of someone affected by autism and want to get involved," he said. "Word of mouth travels fast; we also get the schools we support involved: parents, principals, teachers, administrators and board members from the schools."