In Honor of Joshua's Bar Mitzvah
Joshua Peisach is a 7th grader at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Fair Lawn. In addition to being an Honor Roll Student placed in Honors classes this year in all major subjects, Josh is a talented musician who plays clarinet in the TJ Concert Band and sings Bass in TJ's Chorus and Chamber Choir.
Outside of school, Josh is a talented Hip-Hop Dancer who has been a member of performance Hip-Hop Crews in Fair Lawn and Saddle Brook earning Platinum awards at Beyond the Stars, The Groove, and VIP Dance competitions. Josh also currently holds a High Red Belt in Taekwondo and is working toward his Brown Belt.
For his Bar Mitzvah project, Joshua spent 10 hours volunteering as a class assistant at the Springboard School at Lubavitch on the Palisades. Formerly known as the Therapeutic Nursery at the JCC on the Palisades, this program works with high-functioning pre-school students with communication and sensory disorders such as: Autism, ADHD, and Selective Mutism. Students receive speech therapy, occupational therapy, and social skills lessons along with emotional regulation strategies, while parents receive individual and group counseling.
Because the students in this program are bright and often have advanced academic skills, more traditional Special Ed. Pre-school programs tend to overlook these kids in favor of helping those who are more cognitively impaired, yet these kids are unable to function in mainstream nursery school settings because of sensory processing disorders, speech deficits, and a lack of social skills which are critical to their success in preschool and beyond. At a critical time in their development, this program gives these kids and their families the skills and support they need in order to succeed in school after they graduate.
The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown has hit this population particularly hard this year, and they can use all the help they can get. Tuition is expensive, and with the Special Education funding cuts over the last decade, families can only afford to attend this school through scholarship donations.
Please help Josh make a difference by contributing to the our GoFundMe campaign to benefit the Springboard School at Lubavitch on the Palisades, and any donation will help make an impact. All funds raised are tax-deductible and will be used to help families in need to attend this special program. Thanks in advance for your contribution to this cause that means so much to our family.
More information about Lubavitch on the Palisades: Non-Profit Religious School and Sanctuary, Community Outreach
https://lpsnj.org/index.php/springboard
guidestar.org/profile/22-3410413
charitynavigator.org/ein/223410413