GiGi’s Playhouse Phoenix-Where Friendship Flourishes

As a Tribute to Friendship and National Friendship Day, Marlene Schatzman submitted the following:

“Recently it was National Friendship day…our whole lives we are always told how friends are so important. Friends in our lives come and go, we all accept this. Now as a “special needs” parent we see it is hard for our children to accept that friends come and go. They make friends and sometimes those friends go out of our lives, it’s a bit harder for our children to understand why is this?

That’s what makes GiGi’s Playhouse so wonderful for our Down Syndrome community. We attend programs, make friends, and get to see our friends once a month, twice a week or every day. These are friends we can count on, these are friends we miss when they go away and celebrate when we see them again.

These are friends we love to hug, hang with, and enjoy that they are so much like us and sometimes they are different and that’s just fine. My son used to talk about all the friends he used to have that are not in his life anymore, now he talks about his good friends at GiGis, the ones he sees on a regular basis, the ones he looks forward to hugging, high fiving, and sharing a smile with.

Now my son has many friendships to celebrate on National Friendship Day…thank you GiGi’s Playhouse Achievement Center/Phoenix for allowing our children to grow and build special friendships, because having friends is so important for everyone.”

Thank you for sharing this, Marlene!  Friendship is one of life’s greatest blessings.

Submitted by:  Marlene Schatzman