For the first time in Cochrane, World Autism Awareness day will be recognized and celebrated.  

An event is being held by The Autism Aspergers Friendship Society (AAFS) who have been holding an event for several years in Calgary.

It comes to Cochrane in hopes of bringing the community together to celebrate the Autism community.

Executive Director of AAFS Dean Svoboda says Cochrane is the first of several rural areas they want to hold the event in. 

"Just after COVID-19, we expanded out to the rural centers around Calgary, Cochrane, Okotoks. The program in Cochrane has just has exploded. So we started off with one program per month. Now I think we're up to six or eight programs per month. We've got. close to 100 families and we found it important that if we're finding all these families and folks looking for connection and community out there, that there's probably more. So we thought our first expansion out of Calgary would be to Cochrane just because the community really seems to be a special one".

The event will take place on April 2nd at the Frank Mills Memorial Hall from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.

It is free to attend. 

For more on AAFS check out their website.