Special needs council will begin to develop programs
Guest speaker expected to discuss Old Bridge's 20-year-old Camp Robin
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer

MANALAPAN - The Mayor's Special Needs Council, a new panel recently formed by the Township Committee, has hit the ground running and intends to keep the pace.

Headed by teacher and Manalapan resident Jamie Bruno, the group is forming subcommittees and arranging for guest speakers in order to keep the spark that ignited the group's spirit burning. About 150 people have joined the effort thus far.

On Nov. 9 the council will present a guest speaker from Old Bridge who will outline the program that is offered to people with special needs in that neighboring Middlesex County community.

It is expected that the Old Bridge program will help serve as the prototype for the Manalapan initiative. The Nov. 9 meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in Room 216 at the municipal building.

Peter Pero, of Old Bridge, is the director of Old Bridge's Camp Robin, a recreation program that was designed for people with special needs. He said Camp Robin has been around for more than 20 years and offers a diverse menu of programming. Participants have access to free bus transportation to Geick Park, Route 516, where year-round social programs are presented.

Pero said the building Camp Robin uses at Geick Park was constructed about seven years ago through a joint effort that included private business fundraising and municipal funds.

He said Camp Robin programs include Friday night mixers for adults between the ages of 18 and 55, as well as a program for youths between the ages of 13 and 17. Activities include speed skating, ice skating, basketball, yoga, cooking and computer training.

Bruno said Pero is the first speaker who will help the Mayor's Special Needs Council gain direction by providing a model program to work from.

The council was formulated and adopted by Manalapan's governing body in August at the request of Mayor Drew Shapiro. The mayor told his fellow committee members he had been approached by a group of township parents who have adult children with varying degrees of disabilities.

Shapiro said that after meeting with those parents he realized Manalapan has a constituency whose needs must be addressed with resources, not just good intentions.

The mandate of the council is to develop programming for children and adults who have classified needs.

The council has held a handful of meetings and formed subcommittees to examine transportation, vocational, social, recreation and fundraising issues.

Once news of the council's formation became public, residents of Manalapan, as well as residents of Freehold Township and Marlboro, signed up to become part of the effort.

Shapiro and Bruno said they believe the council can only thrive with the involvement of people from different municipalities, with everyone thinking as one community when it comes to assisting individuals who have special needs.

Bruno said that while the community reaction has been more than promising based on the number of people who have signed on as volunteers, those people now need to regularly attend the group's meetings so that the council may make progress in its effort to provide programming.