The Laughing Duck Support Group

Hello everyone, I am excited to introduce our Laughing Duck support group!!! We meet the first Saturday of every month at the Sun Valley Community Center in Valley Station in southern Jefferson County at 11am. We have been in existence via Facebook for several years, but started to get more serious with the support group in April of this year. I personally had a lot of trouble finding a support group that was close to home, so I ended up creating one myself! At this time we do not have child care during meeting times, but that is something that as the need grows, we will definitely look into. We sponsor many events and try to get out in the community as often as possible. We will have a booth at the Southwest Festival on October 13, 2012 at Sun Valley Community Center to share information about our group and about Autism Awareness. We will also have lots of drawings at the festival; right now we have a $100.00 gas card from Thorntons, we have a signed basketball from Rick Pitino and we have more donations to come! Additionally we are also working with a group of senior girls from Mercy. They picked us for their senior project. So they will be coming to meetings, working the festival, and even creating a craft day for the kids, which will be exciting!!

Our focus lately has been on the festival. Once we have all the business stuff out of the way, we leave the floor open every meeting for discussions or questions. As we grow, we will have guest speakers at our meetings (i.e. a speech therapist, art/music therapist, etc.)

I personally have made a lot of friends since I started the group and I never realized how many families were in the same situation that I was in! It is nice to finally be able to relate to someone who was in my shoes rather than talking to a doctor or therapist or case worker about my situation. I am truly blessed to be able to have the opportunity to have everyone gather together and unite for our kids!