PHILOSOPHY

The Friendship Center will provide a healthy, safe and Christian environment which will offer opportunities to promote the growth of a whole child. Opportunities will be offered for interaction with retired men and women through special intergenerational programs.

HISTORY

The Friendship Center at Schooley's Mountain is the very first Intergenerational Child Care Center in Northwest New Jersey. The center is a model for other child care groups pursuing the intergenerational child care concept. The Friendship Center was conceived over a decade ago when members of the Heath Village Board of Trustees saw a promising opportunity – a chance to provide a unique learning and development experience for the children while enriching the lives of Heath Village residents at the same time. That opportunity was intergenerational childcare in a retirement community setting. With so many working parents and families so dispersed, the kind of individual attention that children need could often not be adequately provided in a traditional day care facility. Why not draw on the rich pool of caring adults at Heath Village who would be eager to volunteer their time to making each child seem special? With the help of a grant from the Lorna W. Reynolds Children’s Development Fund, The Friendship Center opened its doors in 1992 and was an immediate success. Before the first year of operation was complete, the Friendship Center was at full capacity with a waiting list (a status that it has enjoyed continuously since), was receiving top ratings for the quality of its childcare, had drawn the participation of dozens of seniors, and was on a solid financial footing. Since that time, the Friendship Center has doubled its physical size while maintaining its maximum enrollment at 42, has been the subject of an award winning video (The Friendship Center Experience) and numerous magazine and newspaper articles, and has continued to attract interested visitors looking to us as a model they can emulate in their own facilities.