Letcher County Autism Support Group

From left to right: Jackie Mullins, Linda Collins, Melissa Bailey, and Miranda Webb

The Autism Parent Support Group Spotlight for the month of December is the Letcher County Autism Support Group. The group has been in existence for one year. We meet monthly, the first Thursday of every month at 6:00 pm at the Harry M Caudill Library in Whitesburg, Kentucky. We do offer childcare if given advanced notice.

In April of 2009, a member of the group sponsored a motorcycle run in honor of her son who has autism and they raised over $1500 for our group. We are in beginning planning stages for a walk in 2010.

We have open discussions on topics of interest to us. We discuss hurdles and victories we have had and ways to deal with them. We also have guest speakers as often as we can.

We live in an isolated rural community and autism awareness was unheard of. Since we came together we have become a strong voice in our community for autism. We have been in most of the elementary schools during their open houses, on the local radio station with public service announcements, on the local public school television channel, and some of the members have been interviewed for the local television news special reports during Autism Awareness month. We may be small in number, but our voice is loud.