Thursday, December 20, 2018

Autism Empowerment Tween & Teen Social Club

As a fitting wrap-up to the flurry of launch activities surrounding Volume Four, I had the awesome opportunity to share Joel and Felicity's story with a great group of parents at last Saturday's Autism Empowerment Tween and Teen Social Club.
As R.E.M. would say, "that's me in the corner."

The Autism Empowerment Tween and Teen Social Club (or "AETTSC", as I like to call it - I love acronyms) is just one of the many super-cool programs and services that the good folks at Autism Empowerment (full disclosure - of which I am one) provides for the community. Once a month, kids get to come and hang out with each other, play video games, do arts & crafts, and basically just have a lot of fun in a safe, positive, accepting environment. While they're off doing that, their parents have their own separate support group meeting which usually features guest speakers like that guy in the green sweater you see above.

Like with all of our programs, the AETTSC wouldn't be possible without the help of amazing volunteers, wonderful mentors, and everyone who supports Autism Empowerment via donations of time and/or money. Most of the peer mentors are young adults who are on the autism spectrum themselves, and on this night my son was one of them. Although we've both been attending this event for years, it was his first time mentoring, and he did a great job!

If you live in the SW Washington/Portland metro area and have been looking for an event like this, it happens on the 3rd Saturday of each month (unless otherwise specified) from 6-9pm at 305 NE 192nd Ave, Vancouver WA 98684. We had 85 attendees this past Saturday and are always welcoming more. For more information, you can check out the event's Facebook page here.

And with that, nine consecutive weeks of non-stop Volume Four hype comes to an official close. Tune in next week when I'll be doing a Year In Review post, which will include me talking about, well, Volume Four. See you then!

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