Yearning to Help Families in Need – How Jeanine Shwekey & Chaya Bender Started the Special Children’s Center

“Meaningful People” podcast focuses on how and why two women impacted the lives of special needs kids and their families

By: TJVNews.com

On a recent episode of the wildly popular “Meaningful People” podcast, hosts Nachi Gordon and Yakov Langer interviewed the two amazing women who were the drive and force behind the creation and establishment of the Special Children’s Center.

With a burning desire to help those less fortunate, two sixteen year old girls, Jeanine Shwekey and Chaya Bender were determined to provide much needed assistance to special needs children in the Orthodox Jewish communities of Lakewood, Deal and Brooklyn.

As volunteers for an after school program, Ms. Shwekey and Ms Bender saw that the need to provide loving respite care to stressed out families with special needs children was absolutely imperative and they took it upon themselves to do everything possible to make this happen.

Despite encountering some obstacles at the inception of this miraculous journey, the two finally secured an apartment to work with these children with special needs and to give them the kind of love and care that they deserve.

The two pioneers in special needs education started with five children in after school programs and now have over 600 kids that they serve and their families as well.

Both Ms Shwekey and Ms. Bender work with children with acute Down’s Syndrome, Celebral Palsy, Autism and mental retardation, among other disabilities.

Today, the Special Children’s Center has a modern and spacious building in Lakewood, Brooklyn and they have opened another one in the Five Towns in Nassau County.

The Special Children’s Center is witnessing a growing number of intakes and their multi-faceted programs including a daycare center for infants and toddlers has reached new heights in terms of numbers.

Every summer, the Deal, New Jersey community holds a fundraiser for the Special Children’s Center and this year is no different.

Ms. Shwekey and Ms. Bender offer a refreshingly honest account of the path they forged to make the Special Children’s Center a reality in this compelling podcast.