It’s been a full decade of friendship, and none of it would have been possible without your support and involvement. Team Friendship first began because we applied for the NYC Marathon and got approved for a small number of spots that year.
Our mission here at Team Friendship is to make friendship accessible to all. To that end, we host endurance sporting events that challenge our members to discover their best selves while directly supporting individuals with special needs and their local Friendship Circle branches.
In our first year, we had just ten athletes, 176 donors and ran a grand total of one event. We’ve come a long way from our humble beginnings, but we’ll never forget that first impactful year that launched the future of Team Friendship.
We’re feeling super nostalgic as we hit our 10th birthday. Join us as we take a trip down memory lane and recall our most memorable moments of the past decade! Next up is 2011… look out next week for more interesting, inspiring, and sometimes gut-bustingly funny recollections of our second year in operation.
”Story
Noah Pawliger was walking down Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, NY in mid-March, and bumped into Mendel Groner in front of FCI HQ. They knew each other from work in the Friendship Circle and special needs community. Noah expressed that his then fiancée, Chanie was interested in running the NYC Marathon, but did not get a spot.
He suggested that Friendship Circle apply for charity slots. Friendship Circle applied and was approved for a small number of entries! They were costly and the team at Friendship Circle was unsure if they should accept them. Mendel reached out to a runner he knew and she said you better “grab them” and the rest is history.
That was kinda a funny story… a TF runner’s jersey didn’t fit, so she cut her logo out and pinned it on another jersey.
Over the years, TF evolved and grew. Today, we host over 200 people at our largest event. What a long way we’ve come from our first event back in November 2010 with a small group of ten!
Friendship Circle was founded in 1994, giving the organization more than 30 years of experience creating friendships between teen volunteers and individuals with special needs. This decades-long track record reflects the model’s proven effectiveness and community impact.
Over the course of each decade, Friendship Circle chapters have grown significantly in the number of volunteers, participants, and chapters worldwide. The organization has built from a single chapter to a global network while maintaining the core model of genuine peer friendship.
While the core model of pairing teen volunteers with individuals with special needs for weekly visits has remained constant, Friendship Circle has expanded to include Friendship Circle Online (FCO) for virtual programming, Team Friendship for adventure fundraising, and new programming models for adult participants.
Friendship Circle has sustained for over three decades because the need it addresses—belonging and genuine friendship for individuals with special needs—is perennial, and the model produces relationships that are meaningful to everyone involved: participants, volunteers, and families.
Friendship Circle’s alumni include thousands of former teen volunteers whose lives were shaped by their experience. Contact your local chapter or Friendship Circle International at friendshipcircle.com to connect with the organization’s community.