Parent Inspires Friendship Circle Volunteers

A New Jersey mother who helped shape Valley Chabad’s Friendship Circle, a program that aims to provide companionship for special needs children, revisited the program nearly a decade later to tell her own story of parenting a disabled child.

“I just felt it was so important for [the volunteers] to hear what it was like for a parent to raise a child with special needs,” explained program director, Estie Orenstein. “To hear it from a parent, it’s real, it’s very inspiring.”

Nechama Hershkowitz, a former Valley Chabad employee, spoke to a crowd of nearly 20 at the Friendship Circles’ annual training session this week, taking them on the journey from her daughter’s birth to her daily life today.

Nechama’s 4-year-old, who was diagnosed with Spina Bifida, a birth defect impacting the spinal column, was rushed off to surgery shortly after her birth. Now she is able to walk with a walker and she is learning to swim. Diagnostically, she is doing very well, her mother says.

“The parents [of disabled children] go through a lot every single day,” she said, adding that the Friendship Circle’s Friends at Home program, which pairs teen volunteers with special needs children for weekly visits, offers a needed respite for families. “That one hour is so valuable to the family. It’s resting for the family and it’s resting for the child,” she said. “That one hour is like freedom for me.”

The teens listened intently to her 30-minute speech. During funny anecdotes they laughed and during sad stories, they shed tears. “Yes we are going through really tough situation, but yes we have our humor,” Nechama said.

Her first time speaking for the Friendship Circle, the talk let the batch of volunteers “learn a thing or two about life,” said Estie.