Campers
help out at
Friendship
Circle picnic
for kids
with special
needs.

Above: Ageh and Raizy Greenberg of
West Bloomfield enjoy the picnic with
3-month-old daughter Tzipper.

Right: Steven Mavashev, 8, of Oak
Park and Rose Hawkins, 8, of
Goodrich play with a rabbit.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Sta writer

Miriam Steinmetz, 12, of Southfield; Sammy Morris, 9,
of West Bloomfield; Andrew Acknei; 10, of Oak Park; and
Zach Firestone, 10, of West Bloomfield enjoy train rides.

Above: Ariel
Adler, 7, of
Farmington
Hills takes a
break inside
the moonwalk.

fter two rain delays, Rabbi Levi Shemtov
decided an Aug. 26 drizzle would not
halt his outdoor program. After all, it was
a water-based event, anyway
Children with special needs involved in Rabbi
Shemtov's West Bloomfield-based Friendship Circle
enjoyed the long-awaited fourth annual boat-riding
event.
Senior campers from Camp Gan Yisrael in
Kalkaska, a Chabad-Lubavirch-sponsored organiza-
tion, as is Friendship Circle, led the program.
"The girls from the camp are in shlichos training,"
the rabbi says, explaining that they are preparing to
become Chabad emissaries. "And with that as the
theme of everything they do, they come to us to

learn about how we run Friendship Circle."
Rabbi Shemtov and his wife, Bassie, direct the
organization as the focus of their own shlichos.
"They come to learn how we created it, how they
can start a similar program — and while they're here
they can interact with the kids."
The girls who come to the camp from all over
the United States brought "camp spirit" with them.
The event included a barbecue picnic in the back
yard of Andy Jacobs of West Bloomfield.
Guests enjoyed 20-minute rides on Walnut Lake
in boats owned by Jacobs and his neighbors. They
cruised from Jacobs' lakefront to the dock behind
the home of Marty and Dale Goodman, also sup-
porters of the Friendship Circle.
Friendship Circle volunteers, who work one-on-
one with the kids with special needs, were among
the more than 200 guests at the event. 71

9/14
2001

R3

