40 | NOVEMBER 21 • 2019
Coming
Full
Circle
The Friendship Circle
celebrates 25 years of making
the world a better place by
launching an endowment fund.
B
assie and Rabbi Levi
Shemtov knew from the
start of their marriage that
their lives would be dedicated to
making the world a better place.
That commitment to each other,
and their faith, led them to cre-
ating a circle of friendship that
now encompasses thousands of
individuals across the globe.
From young ages, Bassie and
Levi grew up under the teach-
ings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Rabbi Menachem Mendel
Schneerson, of righteous mem-
ory, whose philosophy was of
making the world a better place
by revealing the good in the
world. Under this philosophy,
the good, or the special, can be
found within the soul of each
person.
“
Our outreach began as the
application of this philosophy of
finding the good in the world,”
Levi says. “
The idea is that we
are not reaching out to someone
who is far and different to bring
them back in, but instead we are
reaching within to help them
find their value in the world.”
Sam and Carol Sobel wanted
to honor the memory of their
late son, Daniel, who died in
1993 at the age of 28. They want-
ed to create a place where those
struggling with addiction or
other isolating conditions could
find the support and compan-
ionship their son had received
from a local rabbi. The Daniel
Sobel Friendship House opened
its doors in 1994, bringing Bassie
and Levi to Detroit as emissaries
of the Lubavitch movement to
start the program and develop
new ones.
“
I began working with
Friendship House and had a
passion to help those struggling
with addiction and mental ill-
ness,”
Levi says. “We were also
committed to finding our mis-
sion in the community.”
Bassie and Levi began meeting
with local community leaders
and simply asking, “Who needs
friends?”
“We defined real friendship as
when people see each other not
for their labels or exterior but for
the beauty that is within,”
Levi
says. “
One message that kept
recurring was that people with
special needs needed friends.”
The Shemtovs needed to find
a way to create friendships to
support those with special needs
and their families. Bassie started
gathering local teens to volun-
teer and befriend youth with
special needs. They called these
friends “
Buddies.”
The Friendship Circle was
founded in 1994 with just a
handful of volunteers taking
teens to meet with their Buddies
each week in homes across the
community. Their mission was a
circle of friends that would help
those with special needs be seen
for their value in this world.
“We thought these teens were
doing us such a huge favor by
giving their time,”
Levi says. “
One
day a parent asked why there
was a delay in finding their teen
a ‘
Buddy’
to work with and it
was only because we didn’
t have
enough drivers. The parent glad-
ly offered to drive.”
It was then that the Shemtovs
realized the true value of friend-
ship was circling back and
not only benefiting those with
special needs. These teens’
lives
were being impacted as they
found their meaning. As teenag-
ers came to volunteer, they were
finding this was the only place
they could go that no one was
looking at them for how they
look or dress, their grades or
what kind of house they live in.
“
It was then there was a shift,”
Bassie says. “We realized there
was another population who
could benefit from being seen
for who they truly were and not
their exterior trappings. That
was everyone else.”
As Friendship Circle grew, it
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS