Store Converted to Mom Lounge

By COLlive reporter

From gifts to appreciating Hashem’s gifts.

The Jewish Children’s Museum in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood has opened a “Mom’s Cafe and Lounge,” where mothers of children with special needs can kick back and relax.

Once filled with toys and books, the ground-level store-front was occupied by the Museum Gift Shop, selling everything from Judaica to art and souvenirs to the many visitors of the museum on Eastern Parkway.

Now it’s been dubbed “Friendship Cafe” and stocked with light refreshments, fresh coffee and juice for local moms to enjoy once a week while their children attend the Sunday Circle.

The program run by the Friendship Circle of Brooklyn allows parents of children with special needs a little break and respite from the constant care special children require.

The children enjoy some free play with the many toys and books of the FC collection, Movement and Dancing with the famous Morah Music and Arts & Crafts with Australian-born Ita New which will keep the children entertained and wanting to come back.

The Cafe will also double as a venue for smaller programs and events, such as the Teens & Twenties group, who held their monthly “Learn a Life Skill” session there on Sunday evening.

Under the direction of Mrs. Feigy Hertzel and Mushky Borisute, the girls learned a little, and proceeded to practice their skills in the kitchen, creating their very own salad and dressing.

Crown Heights Friendship Circle director Berel Majesky said the Friendship Circle is only as good as its volunteers, and thanked its over 300 volunteers who make up the ranks of the Friendship Circle, and to Chaya Chein and Rochie Smetana for running the new Friendship Cafe.