 FEBRUARY 6 • 2020 | 11

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TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
Get involved, go to friendshipcircle.org/foreverfriendship

I

magine a place where children 
of all abilities and backgrounds 
could learn essential life skills in 
a safe and accepting environment. 
Imagine if that place was developed 
with experts to help children with 
special needs feel safe venturing into 
new experiences. Now imagine all 
these experiences and life lessons 
were happening in a state-of-the-art 
facility designed as a “mini-town” to 
mirror the real world. 
In 2005, Friendship Circle opened 
the doors to Weinberg Village in the 
Ferber Kaufman Lifetown Facility on 
the Meer Family Friendship Center. 
Weinberg Village brought to life 
the vision of Bassie and Rabbi Levi 
Shemtov: to see children with special 
needs safely navigating the skills 
essential to succeed in life. Research 
continues to prove that students 
have a higher rate of success in com-
prehension skills when taught in a 
true-to-life setting. Weinberg Village 
is that setting.
Weinberg Village is now home 
to Lessons for Life, Pathways and 
Lessons for Life 2.0, ground-breaking 
life skills programs that simulate a 
day in the “real world”’
 for children 
ages pre-K through high school. 
“When we developed Lessons for 
Life and Weinberg Village, we gath-
ered a professional committee of 
therapists, social workers and educa-
tors who worked together weekly on 
planning the center,” Bassie says. 
The Lessons for Life curriculum 
was developed in partnership with 
Nancy Sinelli and Lori Blumenstein 
of the human services agency MORC, 
and is now overseen by Director 
Shelby Lonnerstater, LLMSW. 
“Each aspect of the building is 
designed around the requests of 
the hundreds of families Friendship 
Circle was serving,” Levi continues. 
“We knew we needed to serve the 
children we had met and the thou-
sands who needed these skills in 
a tangible and safe way. Offering a 
program that could work with the 
schools was the only way to reach all 
students.” 
Now in its 15th school year, 
Lessons for Life bridges the gap 
between the skills students with spe-
cial needs are learning in the class-
room and a real-world setting. Every 
day, Weinberg Village becomes a fully 

functioning town run by Friendship 
Circle volunteers for hundreds of 
students. 
Each year, Lessons for Life 
serves more than 2,500 students from 
across Michigan and the region. 
And, Lessons for Life isn’
t just for 
students with special needs. The pro-
gram is for everyone. 
“While all of our other programs 
are open to and enjoyed by people of 
all faiths, Lessons for Life, because of 
the geographic area that the students 
come from, helps us bring our friend-
ship to thousands of students, which 
represents the full diversity of south-
east Michigan.”
Through Pathways, Friendship 
Circle is now working with more 
than 100 
schools to bring students 
with and without special needs to 
Weinberg Village for field trips and 
other learning experience visits. 
Learning alongside each other, stu-
dents can see what life may be like 
for those with different abilities. 
“Lessons for Life began to help 
teach students with special needs 
about the real world,” Lonnerstater 
says. “Pathways allows schools to 
bring students of all abilities to 
Weinberg Village together, so they 
have the chance to work together, 
live together and do life together.”
Working in collaboration with 
Lessons for Life and Pathways, 
Lessons for Life 2.0 offers individual-
ized plans for students with special 
needs. Educators work directly with 
Friendship Circle professionals to 
identify specific goals for a student 
and help to guide that student during 
a visit to Weinberg Village. 
“We are able to see the success stu-
dents have when they come through 
Lessons for Life a few times and are 
truly learning how to navigate town,” 
Lonnerstater says. “Our volunteers 
get to know them. They learn and 
try new things each time they come. 
Most importantly, they are feeling 
confident and more ready to try 
these things in the real world.” 
Lessons for Life has become a 
critical extension of the work done at 
Friendship Circle. Offering a space for 
schools to give real-world experience 
to students, a curriculum designed to 
expand students’
 abilities and caring 
individuals dedicated to volunteering 
their time to help these students suc-
ceed in safe and fulfilling ways. 

A Safe Place 
to Learn

Friendship Circle 
Lessons for Life offers 
real-world experience in 
state-of-the-art village.

Each year, Lessons for Life 
serves more than 2,500 
students from across 
Michigan and the region. 

