Baltimore Friendship Circle Touches Lives

Parenting is tough. Very tough. Parenting a child with special needs is much tougher. It also can be lonely and isolating, for both the child and the parent. Baltimore’s first Friendship Circle branch aims to change that.

A Jewish nonprofit organization that originated 15 years ago in Detroit, the program now services Jewish families who have children with special needs in 80 communities across the U.S. and internationally.

Last spring, Rabbi Shalom Zirkind, his wife, Nuchie, and their three small children relocated from New York to Baltimore to start the Friendship Circle. Already, they are serving about 50 local families.

Central to the program is the teen leadership component in which teens volunteer to befriend children with special needs. The teens are recruited through their schools and by word of mouth. Twice a year, teen volunteers receive training from professional therapists who provide information about specific disabilities and advise volunteers on how best to interact with their assigned child or “buddy.”

They also receive ongoing support from the program’s volunteer coordinator. Once a year, participating teens attend a Shabbaton where they meet and share their experiences with fellow volunteers. Teens are assigned to families in pairs, and are expected to visit with the child at least once a week for one hour. Most volunteers remain involved with their child and family long after their earliest encounters.

Kendall Soffer, a 16-year-old Owings Mills High School student, expects she will always maintain her friendship with her 13-year-old buddy, Libby Rosenthal. Libby suffers from a neurological disorder called neurofibromatosis, which has caused a variety of medical problems and developmental disabilities. Because of her disorder, Libby’s immune system is severely compromised and she is unable to attend school. Therefore, she has little contact with other children.

“The only people she sees are doctors and therapists,” says her mother, Chayka Rosenthal.

Kendall and her friend, Chloe Drescher, began visiting Libby last year, after a friend told them about the Friendship Circle. “At first, I was nervous,” says Kendall. “I wasn’t sure of the depth of her illness. But when we got there, right away, I felt comfortable. Libby gave us hugs, she was so happy to see us. It’s the best feeling.”

Kendall says she looks forward to the weekly visits where she, Chloe and Libby play LEGOs and share dinners. At Chanukah time, the girls made holiday decorations and celebrated together. As for Libby, she says that Kendall and Chloe are “amazing.”

“I’m so excited when they come,” Libby says.

Her mother is thrilled with the Friendship Circle. “They were a part of our lives from the get-go. These girls are teenagers and yet they are willing to come down to Libby’s level and play with her. Would you believe that last time they came, they asked if they could stay longer?”

“It’s a great program because even as a young volunteer, you can really make an impact on someone else’s life,” says Kendall. “It’s also helps Libby’s mother, because it gives her some down time,” she adds.

Getting Out

The Friendship Circle also provides special events, such as holiday parties, recreational excursions, evenings out for mothers of special needs children, and life skills. Kendall’s sister, Sloane, an elementary education major at the University of Maryland, College Park, who plans to earn a master’s degree in special education, helped Rabbi and Mrs. Zirkind create the program’s life skills component.

The program provides weekly excursions for children with special needs and their teen buddies. The excursions to places like Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital, a fire station, Home Depot and Petco are designed to be fun and also educational.

“For instance,” says Sloane, “when we went to Petco, the kids were told to imagine that they had a dog. They were asked to walk around the store picking out the items they would need to care for their pet.”

During the holiday season, the group of young people visited seniors at Levindale, where they painted, made Chanukah decorations and sang holiday songs. “The seniors enjoyed being with the kids, and the kids enjoyed the seniors. It really brought the whole community together,” Sloane says.

Like the elder Rosenthal, Marci Scher, the mother of 8 1/2-year-old twins, is grateful for the Friendship Circle and the companionship it offers her son, Ian. While Scher’s daughter was able to get a Big Sister through the Jewish Big Brother/Big Sister League, finding a match for Ian was more challenging because of his disability.

Ian suffers from a neuromuscular disease that has rapidly worsened over the past several years. A student in the adaptive learning class at Chatsworth Elementary School, Ian has been wheelchair bound for the past 2 1/2 years. “It’s hard for him to do things for himself, and it’s hard to find play dates for him,” says Scher.

“We needed someone who would come over and play with Ian’s Matchbox cars with him, and help him color. He still likes to play ball to the best of his ability and hopefully, when the weather gets nicer, the boys can play ball outside.”

Ian’s buddies, Logan Levy and Andrew Dardick, both juniors at Owings Mills High, have been visiting him since October. When he had to be hospitalized for two weeks in December, they made sure to check in and find out how Ian was doing, says Scher. “They have formed a relationship, and Ian looks forward to seeing them.”

Now that Baltimore’s Friendship Circle is up and running, the Zirkinds plan to add to their menu of offerings. One component they hope to start soon is a Mommy and Me class.

Although Rabbi and Mrs. Zirkind are Orthodox Jews, and while there are Jewish aspects to many of the Friendship Circle’s programs, Rabbi Zirkind stresses that it is designed to help families with special needs children regardless of their levels of observance.

“Most of these families don’t participate much in the Jewish community because there is nothing for them,” he says. “It’s difficult for them to come to shul, and it is not on the top of their lists because they are coping with so much else. If someone becomes more observant because of our Jewish programming, I’m not going to discourage it, but we are mainly here to service non-Orthodox families. We are about giving people what they need where they need it most.”