How ASAP got started

My name is Troy Corley. I'm a pubisher (www.freefunguides.com) and the Mom of a 17-year-old daughter with Asperger's who wanted to hang out with other Aspie teens. In Ventura County, north of Los Angeles and south of Santa Barbara, there wasn't any Asperger's support group for teens.

So, I decided to start one. But not before I roped my friend Irene Freeman, Mom to now 26-year-old AS son Alex, into helping me. Since we're both writers, we bandied about some names. Asperger's Support was easy. But what else? I liked the ring of ASAP and Irene helped fill in the rest!

Without a Website and only an email address and my phone number, we started publicizing our group through local newspapers, Craigslist and fliers. In September 2006 we greeted some folks at our first meeting in a Camarillo Starbucks.

What's Happening With ASAP Now

Since then, our email membership has outgrown our original email server!

We usually meet the last Friday of the month in a renovated old Camarillo house called the Proverbs Coffee House where AS teens and young adults talk, laugh, and play board and card games. Our "meetings" are really just opportunities to interact and have fun. They are not led or monitored by therapists or social workers. Our AS teens and young adults usually have enough of that in their lives!

We try to come up with an additional activity during each month such as bowling, miniature golf, a video game night. We're always looking for suggestions or excuses to do something fun with the group!

Got an idea for an outing or fun activity? Contact troy@vcasap.org