WARREN TWP. -- The Warren Lions Club invited the new Comprehensive Autism Medical Assessment and Treatment Center of King George Road to have their client families be the guests of honor on Thursday, June 14, at the annual Warren Lions Expo.
From 4 to 6 p.m., admission, rides and games at the Expo were open to all families with special needs.
Sheri Marino Haiken, executive director of the Autism Medical Center, which is sometimes called the Autism Think Tank, said she sent an e-mail to their client base not knowing how many families of special needs children might come. Maybe 20 might come, she said she thought, maybe 40.
Well, what happened is that Haikens e-mail recipients then forwarded the invitation to their e-mail lists and so on and so forth.
By Thursday afternoon, as many as 350 people, all families with special needs children, arrived to take advantage of the offer by the Lions Expo and the Autism Medical Center.
Haiken said that families jumped at the chance for their children to be in such a welcoming, non-threatening environment for special needs children.
She said parents came up to her afterwards with tears in their eyes.
One was a parent of a 9-year-old who had never before been at an amusement park.
He loved it, Haiken said.
Some were going on rides like the Merry-Go-Round for the first time.
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Families of kids with Autism are guests of honor at the Warren Township Lions Expo