Jennie Blumenfeld, Thoughts from a Circle of Friends Volunteer

Hi, my name is Jennie Blumenfeld and I am a sophomore at Staples High School. Since seventh grade, I have been an active participant in Circle of Friends, a group dedicated to helping children with varying degrees of special needs. In seventh and eighth grade, I went to monthly Sunday circle meetings and played with a lot of kids. Although some of the kids had disabilities, I learnt to see past it and have a great time. I always looked forward to Sunday circle because I was able to have fun with friends while also having a positive impact on someone. For these kids, this is the highlight of their week. As I entered high school, my responsibility as a volunteer expanded. During ninth grade, once a week, I joined my sister Katie to visit a special friend. This special friend is over 30 years old, however, has trouble with tasks that would seem simple to a young child; such as, coloring in the lines or blowing bubbles. This can be a challenge and also a harsh reality for us. Although she struggled with these simple tasks, we worked through her challenges together. This year, my sister left for college and my friend Caroline has joined me every Wednesday in visiting our friend. Although our friend still struggles with certain things, we try our hardest to help her accomplish them. I love so much being able to see how happy we make her. It is just an hour out of my week where I get to color and play games, but for her, it is the highlight of her week. She gets to spend time with two great friends. We have created a bond like no other. Circle of Friends has allowed me and many other kids to experience something unique: A friendship with people you never thought you would be friends with. Through my time with circle of friends, I have learned how important it is to be patient, persistent, and more aware of those around me. I am so glad I have had the opportunity to spend four great years with Circle of friends. For me, the rewards are endless. It is a great program that everyone should get involved in! Thank you!

Address Delivered by Andrew & Perri Cohen, Senior High School Fellowship Awardees, Evening of Recognition Dinner May 5, 2013

Perri: To be completely honest, Andrew and I first got involved in this organization as a way to fulfill our community service requirement in order to become bar and bat-mitzvah at our synagogue. And like all 12 and 13 year olds forced into community service...we weren’t too keen on doing it...at this point we were only doing Sunday Circle for two hours every month. Andrew: After we satisfied our hours requirement, our mom signed us up to work with a boy with autism on a weekly basis, she told us his name was Robert. Again, initially it felt like a job more than anything else. At the time, as much as we were not that eager to be going over to Robert’s house to do community service with him, he didn’t seem like he wanted us there either. For the first couple of times, he cried, he’d throw tantrums and try and hide himself in his room just so that Perri and I wouldn’t come back...either that or he really didn’t like playing Chutes and Ladders...Regardless, Perri and I stuck with it. For Perri, I think it was because she knew it was a good thing to be doing. And for me, I was too lazy to tell my mom I didn’t want to be going anymore... Well, it’s five years later and Perri and I still go every week to see Robert, and Perri goes more than that to babysit him when Linda needs her. At some point in the five years we’ve been playing with Robert, my relationship with him transitioned from a “job” to me considering him a close friend. I think the first time I realized this was a couple years ago when I was exhausted and didn’t go one day. Robert called me from Perri’s phone and woke me up and said, “I miss you Andrew, can you come play with me, now?” And I see some of you making “oh that’s so cute” faces, but trust me, after that phone call, I didn’t feel good about myself...I felt like I had let down Robert, that I had let down a friend...it was a really terrible feeling, so bad actually that I think since then I’ve only missed going to his house one or two times. But that’s when I realized that I really cared about Robert and that I had a responsibility to him as a good friend to be there for him. It’s funny, I sat down to write this and I was thinking about how long Perri and I have been friends with Robert...I’ve been friends with him for longer than I’ve been friends with 80% of the people I consider my best friends who are my age...I mean Robert has asked me...multiple times, I might add, if I could be his brother, if I could legally change my name to Andrew Bolton. I think this really exemplifies what this program does and what it stands for. It’s a program that is just as much about the “volunteers” (for lack of a better word) as it is about the friends who the “volunteers” work with. It’s a program that creates special friendships--meaningful friendships that don’t dwindle with time because the impact we have made on each other is too dramatic to forget.

Talk given by Eric Benninghoff, Evening of Recognition Dinner May 5, 2013

Hello everyone. My name is Eric Benninghoff and I am a freshman at Weston High School. My brother, Brian has been a part of the Circle of Friends program for over 5 years now. Brian has a pretty tough case of Autism and can’t communicate easily. I can only imagine it is very frustrating to not be able to tell people your emotions, thoughts, and needs. It can be arduous having a member of your family having special needs. Over the years, our family has discovered fun things for all of us to do, including hiking, swimming, and my brother’s favorite: eating. Yet there are still stresses among my parents and I some days because of the needs my brother has. It is very hard for us to see my brother in pain and not know why. Thankfully, we have found relief in the Circle of Friends Program. The work that the adults and teenagers put in to this volunteer program is truly fantastic both at the temple and at home. The Circle of Friends has helped my family come closer together and have even more fun. It gives both my parents and I and my brother the opportunity to do activities we might not ordinarily do. We cannot take Brian to some places such as nice restaurants, movies, or shows much of the time. But now my parents and I can go have a nice brunch or see a movie before we pick Brian up at 4 on Sundays. When his special friends come to our house, my parents and I have a chance to play some baseball or tennis. The Circle of Friends does not just relive some of our stress; it relieves some of my brother’s too. It gives him a chance to spend time with some new friends, interact with others, and try new activities like cooking, playing music, doing art and crafts, and much more. And when his friends come to him at home, he has the chance to do some of his favorite things in his most comfortable environment. It is a great feeling to see Brian smile when we pick him up from the temple or see him at home with a friend. Knowing that Brian is happy makes the rest of us happy too. The Circle of Friends boosts our mood and calms us all down. This allows us to create a stronger family bond and do more activities with all 4 of us. I personally thank everyone who has volunteered their time to this fantastic program as you have really left an important mark on my brother and entire family in a meaningful way! I ask all of you to help support the Circle of Friends so they can continue to do the great work they have been doing for a long time!

Sami Schwaeber, Address; High School Senior Fellowship Awardee Circle of Friends Evening of Recognition May 20, 2012

It was incredibly hard to start this speech. There is so much I want to say that would never be able to fit on paper. It is difficult to formulate words for such a special and unique experience like the one I have had. I will begin with the words that started my journey in the Circle of Friends. “Circle of Friends allows us to look at a person and see their soul. It allows us to look at an individual and feel their soul. And if we are lucky, very, very lucky, we might even get to touch that soul,” Freida Hecht, director of Circle of Friends. When I first joined Circle of Friends, in 2007, I shamefully did not believe her words. It didn’t seem possible to me that I could spend hours with kids with special needs and somehow not see their disabilities. I wanted to provide friendship to these kids, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to forget that they do not think, behave, or interact like I do. They are different and no matter what I did, I would always be able to see that…or so I thought. A year after I joined Circle of Friends, I went to High School. Some parents, who had intellectually disabled children, told the Special Ed. teacher that I was coming up to High School. When I went to speak to my guidance counselor about how I could get involved with special needs students he informed me that the teachers were willing to allow me into their classrooms for an Independent Study. Here, I would be able to teach and reach these kids. My Independent Study class was beyond my favorite class. I would go in during my free periods to say hi to the students, and would go home and think of projects to do with them as well. I desperately searched for them in the lunchroom to make sure they weren’t alone. However, in the back of my mind, I always remembered Freida’s words. How could I forget that Tommy rode in a wheelchair, or Elizabeth repeated over and over again, or Rachel pulled her hair when she was angry? There really was no way to see their soul. By the end of my first year in my Independent Study, I had gotten to know one girl very well. Her communication was quite clear, however, you could visually see her challenges. She walked at an extremely slow pace and had sudden jerking in her neck that caused a lot of kids to stare at her. In the beginning of the year I noticed it right away. However, as the year went on, I started noticing other things such as her artwork, her singing voice, and her comedic personality. Towards the middle of the year, despite her intellectual disabilities, she had taught me how to balance a checkbook. Soon enough, the end of the year approached, and she was graduating. I made her a goodbye bracelet for her to always remember me. I went up and down the school hallways looking for her so I could give her the gift. After five minutes I stopped one of my friends and asked if she knew where Alexandra was. Her response was, “oh, is she blonde?” I answered, “Yes.” She then asked, “Does she have a twitch?” Taken back I replied, “No, I guess that is someone else,” and continued walking. A couple steps later I ran into another friend. I asked her if she had seen Alexandra anywhere. Her response was, “from the Special Ed. Room?” I gave a long pause and finally responded with, “Yes.” She then asked, “The one who moves her neck a lot?” I, honestly, hadn’t seen her twitch since the beginning of the year. I slowly walked back to the special ed room questioning myself on how it is possible that I could no longer see her twitch, yet everybody else did. I questioned myself on how it was possible that I had forgotten that she was “from” the Special Ed. room. I completely forgot that she walked slowly, and jerked her neck, and hunched over. All I could remember was her beautiful blonde hair, her inspiring art work, and her ability to make me laugh. She had become one of my closest friends that year. After I gave her the gift, I gave her an enormous hug. She was off to her own new school. She apologized that she hadn’t gotten me a gift. However, I assured her that she did. I got to touch her soul. I saw the real Alexandra. All I had to do was be her friend, and she gave me the best gift of all. That is where it all started. I have spent a beautiful five years in this organization. I have spent an absolutely amazing five years with my special friend. I do not have the words to describe what she means to me. All I know, is she will be at my wedding, she will be over my house when I am an adult, and she will always be one of my closest friends. Forever. I see no disabilities in my special friend. However, to me, she will always be the most unique because she gave me what I needed the most all throughout high school. Loyalty, compassion, and love. It was evident how much I meant to her when she, herself, wrote me a card at camp reading: I miss you so much, you are my best friend in the world”. She had no help writing this card. She wrote it with her own words and her own love. Our friendship is pure and real. Circle of Friends was about discovering “value” to me. There is SO much importance and worth stored inside these kids, and without Circle of Friends, I believe a lot of us would forget to look at that value. And, until these humans are valued, our school systems will continue to segregate, and our lunch rooms will be divided between who is different and who is “normal”. Society will continue to focus on what is different. It is about value. Circle of Friends has not only taught me how to find value in my special friends, but also in my peers. Thank you so much to the L. family for allowing Lesley and me over every weekend. We apologize if we ever got any nail polish on the furniture or brought any sand in the house from the beach. I love you guys. Thank you Freida and Susan for being the biggest role models. I will take the lessons you have taught me and bring them with me throughout all my adventures as a Special Education teacher.

Hillary Koyner Address, Circle of Friends Evening of Recognition May 20, 2012

Good evening. Thank you all so much for giving me the opportunity to speak to you about what my family has learned from Circle of Friends. A quick bit of background about our family and what brought us to become a part of the Circle. My husband, Ira, and I live in Weston and have three children. Our daughter, Jessica, is 8, and we have two sons, Dwight, who is 7 and Patton, who is 5. Patton was diagnosed about three years ago at the age of two with autism spectrum disorder. One dimension of his disability is how learning to make friends and keep friends is extremely difficult for Patton. Yet teaching the skills necessary to make and keep friends has a significant lifelong impact for people with autism. From a therapeutic standpoint, having friends can buffer the impact of stressful events, correlates positively with self-esteem and negatively with anxious and depressive symptoms. Our family was faced with a paradoxical challenge. We desperately wanted to promote Patton’s social development, yet the opportunities in which these activities typically take place present many challenges for Patton. It was suggested that I contact Frieda to discuss a potential relationship for Patton. My husband and I were looking for a friend who would be extremely patient and easygoing and someone that we knew would devote the time and attention to develop a true friendship and consistently act as a positive role model for our son. We were introduced to Jillian Pecoreillo who immediately fell in love with Patton (of course we knew that would happen) and we are proud to say Jillian and Patton have been having weekly play dates for over three years. So began the incredibly challenging journey to true friendship for Patton which we are proud to say he has conquered beautifully. In Jillian, Patton sees a playmate, someone to go to the backyard and run around with him, play with his buses and trains, and of course give him lots of tickles. This friendship has lasted about three years and we are going to miss Jillian terribly when she goes off to college in the fall, but we know that she will be back to visit and the friendship will endure. A little over a year ago we recruited Faizaan Siddiqui as another friend for Patton and we are proud to say they both look forward to their time together with lots of chases around the backyard. When I originally thought about what I would share tonight with you, it was about our family’s life with autism, and our lifelong journey to recovery for Patton. Tonight is not about autism and it’s not about our autism. Tonight is about celebrating friendship without any boundaries and how Rabbi Hecht and Frieda galvanized our community to give their volunteers the tools to give selflessly. I am inspired by our volunteers dedication to the mission of the circle of friends and I know that you all walk away tonight with a bigger heart than the one you came in the circle with. A few weeks ago the Weston schools had a half day of school due to parent teacher conferences. All three of our kids had play dates for the afternoon. Dwight had a few boys over and one of the moms came to pick up her son. At that moment, Jillian came by for her play date with Patton. Patton waited downstairs for Jillian and greeted Jillian with a huge smile and hello and ran upstairs to get started on his play date with Jillian running after him. The mom was struck “that’s Patton's play date?” she asked. “I thought she’d be littler”. This was exactly the defining moment of why we were attracted to the circle of friends and why we are involved still. There are no boundaries to circle of friends bonds. In developing friendships, Patton and his friends pushed all boundaries that typically define this relationship. Clearly there were differences between Patton and his friends. Moving outside these social boundaries is what defines real friendship. Circle of friends has taught me to expand my understanding of friendship and the value of developing relationships without a broader social norm context or a normative boundary. We are so grateful to our visionaries, Rabbi Hecht and Frieda, for their endless commitment to improving the lives of our kids and humanizing our community with circle of friends. We are honored to be a part of this organization and look forward to sharing many more happy times together. Thank you.

Parent Address, Circle of Friends Evening of Recognition June 2, 2010

My name is . I live in Westport with my wife and our children. We are members of Circle of Friends as our daughter, is a disabled child.
This is a night to honor the volunteers who support Circle of Friends. Your work – from a parent’s perspective – is wonderful, inspiring, and vitally important. That’s just the parent’s perspective – from the kids perspective it’s nothing short of spectacular. When I was preparing for this speech I asked my daughter how she would describe her friends from Circle of Friends – and these are her words: “they are awesome” – “they are the greatest friends a person can have” – “they are great and I love them.”
So, for me, it’s not that hard to think of what to say to the volunteers that are here tonight – at least not from the parent’s perspective. I have a very simple metaphor to use to help you, the volunteers, appreciate how we, the parents, think of you.
When I was growing up, years and years ago, and as my own kids grew up, it would always seem as though there were clubs, or groups, or cliques that we’d want to be part of. Maybe it’s the glee club, the ski club, the boy or girl scouts – some group or club that had a very attractive appeal about it that made you want to be a part of it. You get the message – we have things we want to belong to.
Well, as parents, as siblings, as families of children with disabilities, we are all members of a pretty unique Club. But, unlike these other clubs, I can’t say it’s one we pursued. It kind of found us. A few years after our second child was born, I began to realize that I was now a member of the special needs Club.
I won’t spend time with you tonight taking you back through the days, weeks, months, and years, of learning what the Club’s membership means. But, I assure you it’s a challenging experience much of the time. We care, like any parent, about our child’s development and so many other things. We care deeply about whether she can find and maintain friendships. And, I know, as any Club member can tell you, much of our concerns are not unique.
That’s why, when it comes to Circle of Friends, I can’t help feeling that something has happened to redefine the Club somewhat. Membership has gotten a lot bigger. Who would have thought that such a thing would exist? That kids, in their teens and younger, many with not a care in the world, and who have all the friends a person could ask for, along with a perfectly “normal” life, would want to join the Club? But, as volunteers, you do.
To Sammy and Leslie – who are our daughter's current friends from Circle of Friends, and to Andrea and Allie, who we came to know in earlier years, thank you for joining our Club. Thank you for taking time from your day, from all the wonderful things teenage kids want to do, and, instead spending some of that time with us. Thank you for showing us, as a family – for helping us appreciate – as a family – that you really, truly, want to be part of our Club. Our thanks also to your families who lose some time with you so that you can be with our children. And, to your parents, whose kindness means they drive you to and from our home – parents who deserve all the credit in the world for raising kids like you who recognize the importance of giving back to others and helping those less fortunate.
There a lot of people to thank for the Circle of Friends program. I won’t try to name them all here. But, I must express my gratitude for all that Rabbi and Freida Hecht do to support the Program. Freida, your support, energy, commitment, sincerity, and kindness, and love mean so much to us. Mendel, your son, has been an exemplary teacher for Hillary in Sunday School. Your development of the Sunday School program for us – been another great contribution to the Club. Through that program our daughter met Rebecca, her very own genuine best friend, something that has been great to experience. And we got to make our own new friendship with the Yormarks, two other members of the Club, and people we are very privileged to call friends.
Thanks also to all the people who helped pull this night together – I know how hard you have worked and we really appreciate the support.
To the Circle of Friends volunteers – again - thanks. Thanks for all your love, your time, your kindness, and, thanks for making us realize that membership in the Club is not without its benefits.
And, thanks to my wife, and our son, for being such an important part of my life, of our duaghter's success, and for steering us through all the challenges we have ahead.

Volunteer Voices, Katherine Koller, Weston

Hi my name is Katherine Koller. For the last four years, I have been spending time every week with a girl who has severe special needs. We like to play games, read books, and most of all; we like to make a mess. Joining Circle of Friends has been one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had.
Every day with she has the potential to completely change the way I look at life. I remember one day we were playing candy land, and she said to me, “I’m the luckiest girl in the whole world, aren’t I?” I can only hope that I somehow contributed to her feeling that way. She’s so incredibly optimistic. It really puts life into perspective when you think about how much people complain about all their problems, when in truth her problems are so much greater than ours.
But I think I may be talking too much about how rewarding it is for me, and should focus now on how incredible the program is for the children we visit. It is so beneficial for these children to have someone close to their age to play with. We’re different than the usual helpers, doctors, and specialists they’re used to. I remember one day my Circle of Friends partner and I went to our special friend’s house, and she was so excited to see us that she asked us how our day had been. Now that might not seem like a big deal, but it turns out that for her it was. Her mother informed us later that day that she had never asked anyone how their day had been before.
In addition to her severe physical and mental disabilities, she suffers from Prader-willi syndrome, which means she is in a perpetual state of hunger. Her brain will never tell her that she’s full. The other day, as my Circle of Friends partner and I were leaving, she was begging us to ask our moms if we could stay late. We responded that we couldn’t stay, it was her dinner time. And then she told us she didn’t want dinner, she wanted to play. That was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard.
The hardest part about this program for me is that she asked if we’d be coming forever. I’m going off to College in year and a half, and will only be able to see her during vacation. It’s a sad reality, but I will never regret joining this amazing program. Circle of Friends has impacted so many lives, and I’m so thankful to Frieda for starting it.