By COLlive reporter
Some organizations ask what you can do for them, Friendship Circle asks what they can do for you.
That notion was evident when directors of local branches of the international Chabad network that assists children with special needs and their families gathered in New York last month.
An informative convention where attendance is not mandatory, some 60 rabbis and rebbetzins from around the county met for 2 days at Chabad of NYU in Manhattan to discuss how to expand and further their services.
Welcoming participants were Rabbi Bentzion Groner, Director of Friendship Circle International, a division of The Shluchim Office which organized the kinus, and his wife Mrs. Rochel Groner and brothers Motti Groner and Mendel Groner.
The theme this year was “Collaborate – to advance and grow your Friendship Circle,” during with attendees presented and shared programs that are successful in their respective cities.
There are over 79 locations worldwide that cultivated friendships between 5,000 special children and 11,000 teen volunteers. These shared experiences empower the children while enriching the lives of everyone involved.
And the goal of the kinus was to help with planning and executing programs, engaging, communicating and cultivating community members and volunteers. One such discussion was led by a panel of Friendship Circle veterans: Mrs. Bassie Shemtov of West Bloomfield, MI; Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum of Livingston, NJ; Rabbi Yossi Marozov of Cleveland, OH and Mrs. Miriam Rav-Noy of Los Angeles, CA.
Guest speakers were Peter Bregman, a strategic advisor to CEOs and their leadership teams; Joe Apfelbaum, CEO of Ajax Union Online Marketing; Yakov Weingrow, ESQ; and Sarah Rubin, a volunteer in Maryland, who presented the new Friendship Circle Exchange Program.
In a presentation titled “Leading Your Organization to Point B,” Bregman explained his time management philosophy from his book “18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done.”
A regular at a Chabad center in Manhattan, he used an arm wrestling match with Rabbi Levi Shemtov of Michigan to demonstrate how limited one can be by pushing forward in the same direction, instead of taking time to rethink and choosing a round-about way.
Or, as he explained it in a recent article: “Living life as a performance is not only a recipe for stress and unhappiness; it also leads to mediocre performance.”
Bregman says that if you want to get better at anything, you need to experiment with an open mind, to try and fail, to willingly accept and learn from any outcome.
The immense impact Friendship Circle has, in San Diego alone, was evident when they were recently recognized as one of the most innovative programs in the country for enriching the lives of individuals with autism, Chabad.org reported.
The honor was gained as part of a competitive application process conducted by Advancing Futures for Adults with Autism. The “AFAA Applauds” program is a national initiative recognizing high-quality support for adults living with autism spectrum disorders.
The Friendship Circle of San Diego, directed by Elisheva Green, was selected for results-oriented community life programs and has been featured in a video presentation prepared by the AFAA, in the hope that their efforts will serve as a role model in the creation of similar programming around the nation.
Keep up the great work!!!!