Dai Sugano / Mercury News

Lawrence Wang's mother, Anna, smiles with children including Cosmo Peng (center) Rene Wu (far right) and Edward Chen (far left) as she directs them to do an activity at Friends of Children with Special Needs in Fremont. Anna Lawrence is one of original people who helped create the facility for children with autism and Down Syndrome.

Video: Anna Wang talks about the first Chinese-run center for children with autism and Down Syndrome in the county

Anna Wang worries about dying.

What would happen to her 16-year-old autistic son, Lawrence? Who would care for him the way she does? How would someone else handle his tantrums, spot his distress and help him fit in?

``I realized it's all up to me to care for my child,'' she said.

So Wang, 48, linked up with a small group of other Chinese-American families with autistic kids. They started modestly -- meeting in churches, living rooms, and YMCAs to trade babysitting, offer support and share information.

Ten years later, the support group has blossomed to include more than 400 Bay Area families who meet in a $2.5-million center they built in Fremont. The center's founders and a national autistic spokeswoman say it's the first of its kind in the country.

The Friends of Children with Special Needs Dream Center, built solely with private money, opened this summer on Peralta Boulevard, offering families a chance to lean on each other and teach their children life skills. But it also provides something more: It's a ``village'' where friends transform into family who look out for the group -- especially each other's kids.

``Before, I was all alone,'' said Jezz Lam, 36, of Fremont. ``I had friends. But they don't have autistic kids, so when I tell them my problems, they just say, `Oh really?' Now, I meet a lot of new mommies. They come to my house. I go to theirs. My husband says I've found new soul mates.''

Lam's gleaned little things from the center, too. Another mother taught her to bake gluten-free rice cakes for Ryan, 3, who is autistic and allergic to wheat. As Ryan grows up he'll be able to participate in other activities at the center, such as cooking, jumping on trampolines and playing pingpong. Like most families there, the Lams attend the communally cooked family dinners every other Saturday night.

Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association, says there are online listservs and referral agencies, but person-to-person support in the autistic community is rare.

``I've never heard of something like this before,'' she said. ``But it sounds incredible.''

Though most families who use the center are Chinese-American, anyone is welcome.

Wang, an electrical engineer, and her husband, Albert, 48, a doctor at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Fremont, and the rest of the early support group were sensitive to the needs of people from their homeland, China.

There, they say, it's common to hide disabilities and remove people with special needs from society.

``There's this cultural stigma that you must have been sinful to have a child like this,'' Wang said. ``You must have eaten something wrong when you were pregnant.''

Autism is a bio-neurological developmental disability that is marked by anti-social behavior, which can include scant eye contact, verbal outbursts or self-injurious actions. There is no known single cause. About 1.5 million people, mostly children, are affected in the United States. Treatments can include medicine, vitamins and occupational therapy.

No models
The Wangs said they had no model for the Fremont center. But they and their friends created a place where the non-profit's annual operating budget is $800,000 -- about $300,000 of which is from private fundraising. Government funds and grants make up much of the rest. Some comes from program fees; most classes are about $10 an hour. There are 15 paid staff members. Volunteer parents do the rest: leading play groups, teaching art or heading discussions. Wang, for example, is the volunteer program director; her husband is co-chair of the board.

From art projects using recycled chopsticks to pork buns being sold at fundraisers to lectures translated for non-English speakers from Hong Kong and Taiwan, the center is particularly sensitive to the needs of Chinese-American families.

Still, it's inclusive enough so that Carol Gallegos of San Jose, a North Carolina native who is not Chinese, recently dropped by, checking out the programs for her autistic son. A handful of Latino, Korean and Indo-American families belong, too.

Wang hopes people of all backgrounds join. She doesn't want parents to go through what she did.

Lawrence was an asocial toddler who jumped off staircases, once splitting the backside of his head. Today, he's a sophomore at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont with a GPA of 3.5. He's the only one of her three children, including Beverly, 19, and Alyssa, 11, who rises promptly at 7 a.m. and gets ready for school in 25 minutes.

But when a stranger asked his name, his eyes shifted to the floor. ``I'm getting tired,'' he announced, plunking his head down on a table following a class where his mother taught teens to cut ham and fry a tortilla. During a silly line dance, Lawrence high fived a friend, while smiling and shuffling, mostly out of step. He checked his watch a lot. Once, he stuck out his tongue, at no one in particular. He didn't like it when a classmate -- a teenage girl with an apparent crush -- sat close by.

Sacrifices made
His progress didn't come without sacrifice. Wang was diagnosed with high blood pressure shortly after Lawrence was diagnosed with autism, 13 years ago. She gave up her career and now works 40 hours a week as an unpaid volunteer at the center.

``All the things I was prepared to do in life, were thrown out the door,'' Wang said.

There's also been a toll on the Wangs' marriage.

``For our 20th wedding anniversary we decided to go to marriage counseling,'' Wang said.

Despite the struggles, Wang believes she is creating the caring community she dreamed of, with satellite groups still meeting all over the South Bay. But there is still much work to be done.

``Building the village is an ongoing process,'' Wang said. ``We've got to carry on what we're doing forever.''