By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff

Lethbridge car wash company helps 5-year-old with autism

Aug 29, 2018 | 4:58 PM

LETHBRIDGE – Brandon Rudics isn’t sure if it’s the foaming coloured soap, the sound of the brushes against his vehicle, or the sound of the power dryers at Mint Carwash in Lethbridge that help calm his autistic 5-year-old son Jude, but it does the trick.

After tweeting a few days ago how much his son loved going through the carwash every day, hundreds of other parents of autistic children have contacted him through social media to relay their own similar experiences.

“It’s part of his schedule now… I have the cleanest car in Lethbridge.”

“We just started bringing him through and he’s absolutely loved it,” explained Rudics. “He just had school right across the road there for the summer time and he wanted to go every day after school. We realized if he was getting worked up or whatever, that if we brought him through he just kind of calmed right down.”

Rudics realized that he would need a membership in order to go through every day and hoped that would be ok with the managers of Mint.

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“At first I didn’t know if we’d get in trouble going through every single day cause you know, it’s just kind of an odd thing to do, going through a car wash every single day.”

Rudics decided to visit the Mint office to explain why he was going through so often. One of the employees gave him his business card, which he later left on his desk at home.

“And Jude found it and got a piece of tape and put it on his lapel area on his shirt. And he was walking around the house saying, ‘I work at the carwash.’ And that was the cutest thing. And I messaged Mint on Facebook.”

Mint Marketing Coordinator Jessica Currie soon responded.

“Your story is wonderful, and I would like to share it with our team,” she wrote in a message to Rudics.”If some of the respite workers, kids, and parents would like a behind the scenes tour of Mint, I would gladly make that to (sic) happen.”

Jude was allowed to get a behind the scenes look at the cars going through, wave to the workers and pretend he was also working there.

General Manager Shad Nelson is happy to be able to help.

“I didn’t realize what it did for him. I guess it really relieves his son. It kind of soothes him and it keeps him happy for a good portion of the day. After bringing him through the wash and just showing him the cameras, you can just see how into the wash and the equipment and moving parts and equipment and the colours he is. And it’s really neat to see. We’re just happy we have something to give back to the community.”

“It’s part of his schedule now,” says Rudics. “And kids with autism need a set schedule to help on all aspects of life. I have the cleanest car in Lethbridge.”

Rudics and his wife Hope are also a members of the Chinook Autism Society and he posted his experiences at the carwash with his son. The response was overwhelming.

“I said is anyone else the same? Is anyone else’s kids? And that blew up. Hundreds of people [said] ‘I take my kids there.’ There’s adults with autism who’s in our group and they come here just for that as well. And that was just the autism group. There’s actually lots of other people with different disabilities that love the carwash, that come in to hear the sound. The white noise. It’s a huge thing.”

Rudics tweets have generated more than 35,000 responses and impressions so far around the globe.

Both he and Nelson are now working to get a group of autistic children and adults together for another official tour in the future.