Aug 12, 2009 6:26 pm US/Eastern
Brotherly Love: Home Friends
Children with disabilities sometimes have trouble socializing the way other kids do.
They can't always walk to a park or a friend's house.
But some of those kids have friends coming to them.
We met one of those friends who befriended a boy years ago.
Now the boy is a young man in high school, and the friendship is still going strong.
Very little about Marilyn Greenwald and Russell Bosler is the same on the outside -- not their ages, not their abilities.
"What do you want to do?" Marilyn asks Russell.
"Sing," says Russell.
Inside, they love the same things, like singing together.
Russell has cerebral palsy and developmental disabilities.
Marilyn isn't Russell's grandmother -- she's a volunteer in a program called Home Friends.
Every week, she spends an hour with Russell, singing, reading or just talking, to his mom's delight.
"They laugh a lot!" said Russell's mother, Catherine Nold.
"Marilyn is very bright and has a wonderful sense of humor and is teaching Russell things all the time."
Marilyn has been visiting Russell since he was 14, as well as doing other volunteer work.
"You want to fill the hours with doing something productive, not just sitting and watching television all day," said Marilyn.
Now Russell is 20, and the friendship is stronger than ever.
The same program that brought them together has more volunteers available to visit children with special needs, "but we don't have any children," said Tina Weaver of the program, RSVP of Montgomery County.
"Families have not contacted us about children that would like to have a visitor like Marilyn."
"She is wonderful," said Russell.
The program hope to create more friendships like Russell's and Marilyn's to enrich two lives at once.
RELATED LINKS:
RSVP of Montgomery County
Jessica Simpson: Then & Now
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