By JANICE ARNOLD
Staff Reporter
MONTREAL - A Jewish group has plans to transform the former Chevra Shaas synagogue into a centre for children with special needs where they can receive therapy, learn life skills and just enjoy themselves.
The building on Lavoie Avenue is to be the new home of the Friendship Circle, a nonprofit program launched in Montreal five years ago by Rabbi Yosef Paris and Sima Paris. It began modestly as an activity that paired high school volunteers with younger children with physical and developmental disabilities to be their friendly visitors.
The program has since grown much larger to encompass weekly recreational and social programming for the children and their families, as well as the teenaged volunteers, and is run by a professional staff.
The synagogue, which is about 45 years old, closed its doors at the beginning of this year because of declining membership. The remaining congregants have joined the nearby Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue.
Rabbi Paris said the property was originally bought by a developer who is a supporter of the Friendship Circle, with the intention of turning it into condominiums. When the plan fell through, he sold it to the Friendship Circle for the price he paid – $1.2 million.
That sum was donated to the Friendship Circle by a person who wishes to remain anonymous.
The Friendship Circle, a project of the Chabad-Lubavitch organization, was established in Detroit in 1994 and has grown into a North America-wide network of about 25 branches.
The Montreal branch is the largest after Detroit’s, said Rabbi Paris. It has 195 teen volunteers, mostly but not exclusively Jewish, who are students at 32 schools as diverse as Beth Rivkah Academy, Riverdale High School and Collège Notre-Dame.
More than 100 children with special needs benefit from the teens’ home visits.
Rabbi Paris said the demand for volunteers and from students who want to volunteer is greater than the Friendship Circle can handle right now. The organization made a commitment from the outset to operate within its budget, which is now about $340,000.
The plan is to model the Montreal centre on LifeTown in Detroit, whose outstanding feature is its “village,” an interactive model town where children can practise such everyday activities as shopping, eating out, getting a haircut and banking, in a fun way.
On May 30, Friendship Circle president Fred Dubrovsky, who is in the real estate business, led a Montreal delegation to Detroit to tour LifeTown.
Rabbi Paris said Montreal’s centre will be developed in two phases. The first will be a renovation of the existing building, which has 34,000 square feet, to enable it to house programs and offices. He said the building needs a lot of basic work, such as a new roof, as well as to be reconfigured.
The second phase is an expansion to create a “village” and build underground parking. The projected total cost is at least $5 million, he said.
Rabbi Paris said Lavoie Avenue is ideal because it’s close to parks and hospitals.
Currently, the Friendship Circle’s programs include Sunday activities and other regular programming at the YM-YWHA, including art, music, baking, story-reading, sports and outings. The Friendship Circle is now teaching life skills through outings to stores, restaurants and libraries.
Social events such as birthday and bar or bat mitzvah parties, as well as summer and winter day camps, are held at Pomerantz House on Van Horne Avenue, the headquarters of Free Hebrew for Juniors, another Chabad-sponsored program, or at rented facilities.
For families, there are holiday festivities and Friday night dinners, and a special “Moms’ Night Out” each month. Volunteers are offered training seminars, team-building activities such as paintball-shooting and pizza nights, occasional parties and a recognition dinner each May, which is also the Friendship Circle’s main fundraising event.
The Friendship Circle’s goals are to provide disabled children with companionship and stimulation, give their parents some respite and make them feel less isolated, and teach young people how to be caring, responsible and appreciative of what they have.
More than 600 people attended last month’s volunteer recognition party, held at Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in memory of Max Brooks of New York, the late father of Renee Brooks Lieberman, whose daughter Nicole, a Hebrew Academy student, is a volunteer with the Friendship Circle.
A highlight was the revelation that volunteers have contributed 7,946 hours to the organization this year.
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