The San Diego County Chapter of the Autism Society of America Seeks & Provides Support for Fire Victims with Autism

The following message comes from the The San Diego County Chapter of the Autism Society of America:

First and foremost, we hope everyone is safe and your losses are limited. We have many members of the San Diego autism community who live in the paths of the fires and we know that our families, whose physical, emotional and financial resources often are already stretched thin, may be significantly affected by even a minor disruption. The impact of the events of this week will be felt by all, and for a few, the loss may be immeasurable .

Many, many people have come forward to offer support and resources to those impacted by the firestorms, this includes offers of food, shelter, toys, respite and more. Unfortunately, our office has been closed, our administrative staff person, Mindy is evacuated with her family from their North County home, as are several ASA board members. Thus we have not been able to identify those in our community in need of this assistance. We were able to offer assistance to a few families at the Qualcomm shelter earlier this week and hope to continue to be of service by providing a mechanism for those people wishing to provide assistance to connect with those who can use their help.

With that goal in mind we have created the San Diego Autism Fire Resource Yahoo listserve group:

An online place for autism families affected by the 2007 San Diego firestorms to find support, resources, and information that meets their unique needs AND a place for those who wish to provide assistance to those in need to offer their help.

Questions related to continuity of Regional Center, school district and medical services, managing behavior concerns related to evacuation, requests for assistance and offers of assistance are all appropriate topics. Please limit your posts to issues pertaining to this topic.

Forum Home page:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SDAutismFireResource

Forum Email Address:SDAutismFireResource@yahoogroups.com

We hope to get the word out and will work to distribute this information to the evacuation shelters, libraries and other places where displaced people might be accessing the Internet. To give or get support at this difficult time, please join. If you are aware of someone who needs assistance , please post on their behalf (with permission, of course).

If you are in need of help, or can provide help to members of the autism community in the San Diego area, please let these folks know!