A ‘Special’ Camp in Albany

Times Union

Two dozen teenagers cared enough about helping special needs kids that they spent their holiday break volunteering for them.

For three days last week, the teenagers, local middle- and high-school students as well as three students home from college, participated in the Friendship Circle Winter Camp. The camp helps special needs kids and their families by providing a host of creative and recreational activities including sports, arts and crafts and music.

“During the holiday break many special needs kids don’t have much to do as they are off from school, but their parents have to work,” said Liba Andrusier. She and her husband. Rabbi Shimon Andrusier, are directors of the Friendship Circle.

“Some special needs kids don’t have many friends, and vacations can be a tough time for them and their parents. This gives them a chance to bond with others and have a good time.”

The circle allows boys and girls with developmental disabilities, such as autism, Asperger’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and emotional challenges, to socialize with teenage volunteers.

The nonprofit, nonsectarian program is directed and coordinated by adult staff members. The include an occupational therapist and music therapist from Wildwood School, a registered nurse, who is the mother of two teenage volunteers and a volunteer herself, and Rabbi Rami Strosberg, principal of the Hebrew Academy on Sand Creek Road, where the camp is based.

But the vitality of the camp experience is driven by the teenage volunteers, Andrusier said.

Friendship Circle relies on the young people who undergo training at the start of the year with psychologist Gina Cosgrove and then develop social relationships with developmentally disabled kids.

Andrusier said those social bonds help improve the quality of life for both the volunteers and the children. She said two of the volunteers this winter are taking college courses in special education, inspired by their work with the children.

Besides the winter camp, Friendship Circle features the Friends at Home program that matches a pair of specially trained teen volunteers with a special needs children whom they visit at home weekly throughout the year, providing friendship to the child and respite for the parents, Andrusier said.

Andrusier is a graduate of Beth Chanah Teachers Seminary of Tzefat, Israel, and Beth Rivkah Teachers Seminary of Brooklyn. She is an emissary to Albany for the International Chabad Movement, an outreach organization of the Lubavitch Chasidic community, which sponsors the Friendship Circle.

The Friendship Circle began in West Bloomfield, Mich., several years ago and in the Capital Region in 2004. There now are 75 similar programs across the country and the local chapter has 65 volunteers.

To find out more about the program, call the The Friendship Circle 438-4220 or visit on the Web at http://www.CapitalFriends.org.