By Janis Siegel , JTNews Correspondent
Spencer Freedman, 22, is older than most of the nearly 100 teen-aged volunteers that work in the Friendship Circle of Washington’s bi-weekly program for special needs-children, but he’s exactly the kind of friend that the kids who go there love to be around. Plus, he’s an ace at shooting hoops.
For almost three years, the basketball player for the Special Olympics Shoreline Shorelions, who works two jobs and is a spokesperson for Autism, has been teaching the other volunteers at Friendship Circle about how lonely it is to have a condition that isolates so many young people and keeps special-needs kids outside of most mainstream social activities.
“I educate them on what it’s like always being by yourself,” said Freedman, “but my main focus is to prove that we can do anything in the world.”
The Friendship Circle program, which operates in 65 cities worldwide, is a Chabad–Lubavitch-inspired community program in its seventh year of operation in Washington. The music, movement, sports and martial arts curriculum is run by Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky and his wife, Esther Bogomilsky, who view it as chesed, or loving kindness.
“These kids have physical, mental, and emotional conditions from Asperger’s syndrome to mental retardation to those who have no social skills,” Elazar Bogomilsky told JTNews during a visit to the Mercer Island Community and Event Center, where the Sunday program has been held for four years. “We’re the only Jewish program that gives Jewish kids with special needs the many programs that we do.”
Friendship Circle is free and open to anyone with a special-needs child. That day, which launched the 2011–12 program, the community center was buzzing with laughter and play.
“Every other Sunday we take over their building,” Bogomilsky joked. “We saw the need, started out with four families, and today we have 60 families.”
The organization just secured office space on Mercer Island where they can meet with families, and find the best fit between the kids, the teen volunteers, and the specialists.
“We’re here to provide them with friendship,” added Bogomilsky.
The two-hour Sunday Circle program matches dedicated and committed local volunteer teens with individual kids, as they rotate through activity modules. The teen mentors make a yearlong commitment to the FCW program, and stay throughout that year with the same child.
Four specialists work with the children, including a behavioral specialist, a music specialist, a movement specialist, and a Kung Fu master, Jacob Lunon, who sees them grow in confidence and strength.
“Life is just not fair,” said Lunon. “These kids are going to have a rough way to go. But here, they can participate. They can do something and think, ‘I’m just like everybody else.’”
Lunon, who also teaches martial arts classes at the Torah Day School, the Seattle Jewish Community School, and at Greenlake Elementary, heaped great praise on the teen volunteers that choose to devote their Sunday afternoons to lovingly listen, assist, and nurture these special kids.
“In this day, in this time, it’s a rare thing to see these kids,” added Lunon. “They are what is right in America.”
The teens, which range from 8th to 12th graders, take three to four hours of basic training to be in the program. Throughout the year, they participate in special leadership workshops and are continually upgrading their skills as they work with the children. They are also a non-denominational group and Bogomilsky said that several of them are not Jewish.
The Bogomilskys are also starting a B’nai Mitzvah program for 6th and 7th graders so the volunteer work can be used to fulfill their community service hours.
Many teens currently use their volunteer hours at FC as community service hours at their schools.
“There are so many teens that want to get involved,” said the rabbi. “This is a phenomenal experience for a teen, to learn how to give of yourself and give of your time.”
The Friendship Circle also operates several other programs for the parents and siblings of these special needs kids.
Bogomilsky described its flagship program, Friends@Home, which sends trained teens to the homes of the special-needs children for a couple of hours a week, giving parents a bit of a time out while the teens agree to play whatever games the kids want.
Sib Shops workshops feature activities for the sisters and brothers of these children so they can get together and make friends, and the Mom’s Night Out program plans a variety of relaxing evening events just for women.
In addition, their Friendship Circle Wraps program coordinates a toy drive with partnering Jewish schools, who then donate toys to the Friendship Circle kids.
The program also operates a summer camp out of the Mercer Island facility. This year, Bogomilsky said, the camp is their next growth area and it will be “full-blown.”
“Our ultimate goal is to create a center,” he said.