The Circle of Friends

Circle of Friends – Beth Israel of Westport/Norwalk

A few years ago, longtime Jewish educator Freida Hecht noticed that children with special needs were excluded from activities enjoyed by other children. “They had no play dates, weren’t invited to birthday parties, and didn’t participate in community activities,” says the teacher and principal of Beth Israel of Westport/Norwalk Hebrew School. “They had access to very few organized social activities, if any. I thought I might be able to informally recruit high-school kids involved at Beth Israel to go to the homes of children with special needs, for playdates.”

In September 2004, she called two Westport teens and asked them to try out the idea. Soon Hecht had parents of children with special needs calling to ask for playdates, and high-school students calling to ask to volunteer.

A 501(c)3 not-for-profit community project of Beth Israel of Westport/Norwalk, Circle of Friends now places more than 100 teen volunteers throughout eastern and mid-Fairfield County, working with 85 to 100 children and teens with special needs. The program is non-sectarian, but its focus is to provide Jewish community for children with special needs. “Every soul, every person, is created in God’s image and deserves a friend,” Hecht says, “so I try to find a friend for everybody who calls me.”

Programs include weekly one-on-one home visits, as well as monthly holiday- and Shabbat-focused group events at Beth Israel of Westport/Norwalk. The Circle also runs monthly get-togethers at Beth Israel for adults with special needs.

“The teen volunteers come because they want to do a good thing for others, but the experience ends up transforming their lives,” Hecht says. “When they become mature adults, they will be the future benefactors and leaders of the Jewish community. If you can educate Jewish kids to be compassionate and giving and to contribute to the community when they’re teens, you’ll have them for life.”

Circle of Friends will host a winter camp for children with special needs, from Dec. 27 to 31, and a summer camp in late August 2011.

For more information: www.bethisraelct.org / (203) 293-8837

The Friendship Circle – Fairfield County & Hartford

The Friendship Circle provides assistance and support to the families of children with special needs. Started in Michigan, the program has been replicated throughout the U.S. and was brought to Stamford by Chabad of Stamford in 2003. At that time, UJA-Federation of New York reported that the two most underserved constituencies in the Jewish community were children with special needs and teenagers.

“This was a way to serve both, and to create an opportunity for each in a very different way,” says Rabbi Chezy Deren, director of development. “The basic principle is a belief based on the value of ‘V’ahavta l’rayecha kamocha,’ ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Every member of the Jewish community has value and deserves the love and acceptance we all want in our lives.”

The Friendship Circle of Fairfield County now serves 105 children and their families throughout the region, with 300 teen volunteers engaged in one-on-one home visits, group social activities, and Jewish educational and holiday programming.

“The children are not lacking anything materially or care-wise, but this may be the first time they have something as simple as a friend,” Deren says. “This is someone who comes to the home, not to work on speech therapy, not to do a behavioral analysis, but just to hang out. The joy this gives is immeasurable.”

Deren says that the family of a child with special needs must be “on” 24 hours a day, with little or no respite. “For somebody to come along to that family and say, ‘On Sunday morning, you don’t have to worry about what your child will do,’ provides a benefit for the family, a stress-free zone.”

There is “magic” that happens between the teens and the children, Deren says. “A lot of teens are materialistic and self-centered, as is natural at that age,” he says. “But as volunteers, they show remarkable dedication. We hear from many parents that, when the teens leave the program to go off to college, the children want to go with them.’

For more information:
Friendship Circle of Fairfield County
www.friendshipCT.com
(203) 329-0015, ext. 438

Friendship Circle of Hartford
www.friendshipcircleCT.com
(860) 232-1116