On Saturday, April 14th, 2007, at the Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. there will be an Autism Expo. Randy Gaston and his wife, a friend of mine, and a father of triplets on the spectrum, have organized this Expo. They have over 20 different speakers coming, as well as vendors to set up tabels. You can register on line and order tickets for this wonderful event by going to www.autismexpo.org !
My huband, Greg and I put on an Autism Expo last September in the Cincinnati, Ohio area and that is how we met Randy. We had over 75 local Service providers, therapist, doctors, and organizations that work with children/adults on the spectrum set up information booths for families. We then invited families to come to this one location to gather all this information for free. We had a ton of free activities for the children, including lots of sensory experiences. The local fire departmens and police departments brought out their cars and fire trucks so the kids could go through them. Jenn Jordan from Q102 came out. It was a ton of fun. Each family also got a free copy of the 2006 Families with ASD Autism Yellow Pages that Greg and I had made for the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Ky Area. There was an estimated 2,200 people attended our first year event. We are currently planning our 2007 Autism Expo for September 29th which you can get more information at our website at www.familieswithasd.org Our Expo is much smaller, and is for the entire family(please bring your children). We are going to have a couple guest speakers this year, one including author, Kathleen Deyer Bolduc. She has written, "His Name is Joel" and "A Place Called Acceptance". Everyone is welcome to come. We hope to see you there!