Attention Deficit Disorder | Friendship Walk Draws Hundreds To Agoura Hills

The Chabad of the Conejo hosted the sixth annual Friendship Walk on Sunday in Agoura Hills, raising allowance for programs for special-needs children.

Hundreds of participants walked from Yerba Buena School at the tip of Reyes Adobe Road to Willow School at Laro Drive and Kanan Road, where they enjoyed an afternoon of food, song and entertainment.

Rabbi Eli Laber from Chabad of the Conejo mentioned the eventuality raises recognition about the Friendship Circle, a nonprofit group that serves about 200 family groups with special-needs young kids in the Conejo Valley and the west San Fernando Valley. The allowance raised, approaching to be between $150,000 and $200,000, will be used to account the organization's activities, he said.

"It's extraordinary the audience we've had and everybody reaching out to their family and friends about it," mentioned Laber.

The Friendship Circle encourages teenager volunteers to cater young kids with autism, Down syndrome, intelligent palsy, consideration shortage disorder and other romantic and earthy challenges, and rivet them in sports, aptness programs and Sunday meetings.

Allison Johnson's 10-year-old son, Nathan, has autism, and two Sundays a month they expostulate from their home in Ventura to Agoura Hills, where Nathan attends a Friendship Circle discussion at Yerba Buena School

"He loves to go and he asks about it all the time," she mentioned as she waited with Nathan is to beginning of the 5K walk. "They do crafts and song and fool around outside, and all the kids are reserved a buddy."

"We're not able to experience in all the other things they do, since it's as well far a drive, but twice a month we're able to succeed it," she said. "It gives him an exit to do something with other kids where he's not judged, and moreover when he was younger, it gave me a luck to take a break and do something for myself."

Eiean Shemuelian, 15, of Calabasas took segment in the! travel is to initial time. He proposed assisting out with actions for special-needs young kids a couple of months ago.

"When you see them grin and when they beginning having fun, you unequivocally beginning having fun, too, and you obtain a lot out of it," he said.

It was the initial time that Tracy Costanzo of Thousand Oaks participated in the event. "My daughter has special needs and she attends Westlake High School and the Friendship Circle has only proposed a lunch group at the college and they're on foot and we're on foot to encouragement them," she said.

Costanzo mentioned the lunch group gives her daughter, Samantha, who has intelligent palsy and learning difficulties, the luck to consort and correlate with other kids. "She needs that type of communication and so we am thrilled. It's a superb module and I'm vehement by the travel today," she said.

Anastasia Bechera, 18, assisting out with the travel on Sunday, is a of a few students from El Camino High School in Woodland Hills who proffer with Friendship Circle.

"I regard we pick up more from them than we can ever teach them," she mentioned of the children, "and only to know we can change their lives by spending time with them, we regard it's a of the many astounding things I've ever done."