Friday Night Friends

       Friday Night Friends provides an invaluable service to families with medically fragile and special needs people. The program’s mission is to provide medically supervised care for the parents of these special children. Parents entrust their children to our care on Friday evenings from 6-10 p.m. so they may have a ‘respite’ from the almost continuous job of taking care of their child.

       Care will be provided at Fieldstone United Methodist Church in Blacksburg by volunteer medical students, nurses, and members of the community under the supervision of a doctor.  There is no age limit for this service.  We also provide care for the siblings of our special needs children.

       For more information, please call Elizabeth Gersuk at (972) 984 0862 or Karen Hanson at (540) 382 7856.

       As of January 2007, Friday Night Friends is also available in Roanoke at Cave Spring Baptist Church.  Care is provided once per month 6:30-9:30pm.  For general information, please contact Carol McCulloch at (540) 890 1244.  If you are interested in becoming a medical volunteer, please contact Beth Lane at (540) 772 1643. 

The original Friday NITE (Nursing Interventions in a Tender Environment) Friends was started at Custer Road United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas by Linda Guerrera.  My older brother Stephen, who has Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, attended this program.  I attended this program as a sibling for many years, and then served as a volunteer there for four years before leaving for college.  We looked forward to our night out, while my parents looked forward to their night off. 

I moved to Virginia in 2003 to attend Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM), where Dr. Stanczak became my mentor.  I knew Dr. Stanczak from Texas – she was Stephen’s doctor – and her practice consisted mostly of people with special needs.  We both soon realized there was a huge need for a similar program in Virginia, so we decided to model a program after Friday NITE Friends. 

At the time, I was the Vice President of the Pediatrics Club at VCOM, and Dr. Stanczak was our sponsor, so we were able to enlist the help of many of the club members.  With the help of Linda Guerrera, we created the necessary paperwork.  Heidi Leftwich, President of the Pediatrics Club, organized a very successful toy drive at VCOM.  She also wrote several grant proposals, and we received a generous grant from Wal-Mart to provide us with other necessary supplies.  Finally, I was given the name of Karen Hanson, who is the Children’s Ministry Team Leader at Fieldstone United Methodist Church.  Karen also realized the need for a respite program in our area, and readily agreed to hold the program at Fieldstone. 

Our first Friday Night Friends was July 1, 2005.  In the last 6 months we have more than doubled in terms of both children and volunteers.  Heidi, Karen, and Dr. Stanczak have all been instrumental in the continued success of Friday Night Friends.  I am glad we are able to provide parents with a much needed respite each month. 

-Elizabeth Gersuk