Hundreds of people gathered in Palm Bay on Saturday to get SOAKed. They attended SOAK for Autism, held at Space Coast Harley-Davidson. The event was designed for the awareness about autism and for raising funds to Support Our ASD kids, or SOAK.

Silvia Hierro, president of SOAK said, “ We want to spread awareness and for the community to understand what autism is. All the kids are different, so it’s important for the community to understand that not one child with autism is the same as another one.”

Kami Lambert of Grant-Valkaria said, “I have a daughter who’s on the autism spectrum, and we’ve been involved with the SOAK activities for a number of years. I think that the SOAK moms and dads are just amazing people. They put out their own personal time and energy to do stuff like this and I want to support them.”

There were some water-based activities for kids, including a slide and some under water activities, provided by a hose from Brevard County Fire-Rescue.

Lambert said, “There’s a water balloon toss or whatever that’s going to go on, I’m definitely going to do that.”

There were many more things to do, a host of raffles, face painting, soccer shots, a dunk tank, vendors and music.

By Prakriti Neogi