(upbeat music) (light uplifting music) - [Videographer] Okay Gabriel, what do you like the most about We've Got Friends?

- I like to chat, and talk, making arts and crafts.

I like, I like to dance.

And we also like to have pizza too.

- As soon as they get here and they see their friends that they recognize, they do the We've Got Friends handshake, they're high fiving and giving each other hugs.

They converse with each other.

They're so comfortable.

And that's the whole idea of this is for them to have lifelong friendships.

- [Woman In Background] Wooo!

- You just watched some video from We've Got Friends, a great organization and the founder of that organization is with us right now, Candi Carter, founder of We've Got Friends and an Emmy award-winning broadcast executive, lemme, lemme be more specific, former executive producer of The View.

Hey Candi, how you doing?

- I'm doing well.

How are you?

- I'm great.

And just watching that video reinforces how terrific this organization is.

The website is up for We've Got Friends.

First of all, tell us about your son, Emerson, and how Emerson's experience growing up... triggered this initiative, which is helping so many young people, please.

- You know, when you're a parent and you have a child with special needs, they literally do not have friends.

I think when they're very young, when they're toddlers, it's all, you know, everybody's together because the parents are always there.

But the minute the kids hit middle school and they can walk around town by themselves or they can be dropped off at a movie, our kids are at home.

And I realized this and I just wanted to find a way for him to have friends.

So I went to his school and said, look, I'm gonna go to my church.

I have the rectory, which looks like a house.

I'll be there every single week and handed out flyers.

And one parent showed up with a kid, another parent showed up with a kid.

Literally after five months, I had 30 kids.

I had 30 parents.

And it just kind of became a thing, you know, as moms we kind of make it happen.

- Yeah, moms do make it happen.

I have to ask you, tell us more about Emerson.

What's he like?

- So, yeah, he's, he is amazing.

I always say I have Forrest Gump at 22.

So when you see Emerson, he looks like a fairly typical child, but he was born with a rare chromosome abnormality that caused brain damage, other issues.

He was in the hospital for a year basically in and out, open heart surgery as a 10 month old, but developmentally delayed.

So he's 22, but like a five-year-old.

So we still do a lot to help him with his day-to-day care, bathing, brushing his teeth, those types of things.

But he walks and talks and moves around and he loves to be in the space.

I always say kids with special needs know how to socialize, but it doesn't look like how we socialize.

You know, he wants to be next to the kids, he's not necessarily talking but really happy to be there, right.

And that just shows you all of the levels of kids who have disabilities.

- I don't know if you have to be a parent to appreciate this, maybe, maybe not.

How much we obsess over our kids being as healthy as possible, but then being as happy as possible.

They go hand in hand.

- They do.

- That being said, what's it like for you Candi, to see your son, to see your son with these other young people together, just being together?

- It's so funny.

Well, first of all, let me just give you this analogy.

Think back to the pandemic.

Think about when everybody was isolated in their homes, people were literally suicidal, upset, depressed, couldn't take the fact that they couldn't have human contact with friends, family.

I mean, it was really, really a horrible thing.

But the world felt it.

That's what our kids feel like.

They don't have that feeling and touch of friendship and just comradery with other people.

They're typically very isolated.

And so when the kids come together, it's like a cartoon.

They don't have a filter.

So their eyes are big as saucers.

Like they can't believe their luck that they're all together and having a great time.

And so I literally just got an email from a member at my church and she wrote me an email yesterday and she said, "Candi, I was working at Tony's kitchen, I was in the church and I-" - Great organization here in town, a great, Tony's kitchen around the corner from where I am, but go I'm sorry.

- Yeah, no, they serve millions of meals or hundreds of thousands of meals every year.

- They sure do.

- But, so she said, I was at Tony's kitchen, I heard noise.

And she goes, I went in and I looked in there and I saw, We've Got Friends.

She goes, I had heard about it but I'd never actually seen it.

And she said there was so much joy emanating from the room, even though the kids were different levels and it didn't necessarily look, you know, like you would think it would look, they were having a blast.

They were loving each other.

And she said there was so much joy in the room.

And that's what it is.

It's just, it's a very simple idea that has a massive impact on the child and the entire family, quite frankly.

- Candi, let me ask you this.

Obviously it's a not-for-profit organization.

You know, we're a not-for-profit production operation.

I spend way more than half my time raising money to keep the lights on - That's right.

and keep it going.

What about you?

- Yeah, we're constantly raising money.

And I will tell you, I do not like to get political at all, but I got an email two weeks ago that said the funding has been cut from AmeriCorps.

And we had a young college- - Hold on, federal, sorry for interrupting, federal funding for AmeriCorps, - for AmeriCorps go ahead.

- Cut, gone.

They lost their funding and literally they said, your worker's done tomorrow.

And she was supposed to go all the way through I think the end of the summer.

And this is a college student who took off a year and wanted to do something meaningful and working with We've Got Friends, getting to know the young people has changed her life.

She's like, all of the kids are like my best friends.

- Hold on one second Candi, I'm sorry.

So the people understand what AmeriCorps is.

- Yeah.

- AmeriCorps is an organization that takes college students who want to make a difference in a community - Yeah.

- For those who need help and pay them to do that.

Go ahead, pick up your point, Candi.

- Yes, and also just people in the community who wanna help.

- That's right.

- And so, where I am a small organization and I can't afford to have a full salaried person to go to every single group and make sure my parents are taken care of and make sure there's consistency and make sure we have the games that we need.

I was able to do that through AmeriCorps, right?

Because it was subsidized by the government, gone.

Now I had one AmeriCorps worker who did an enormous amount of work for my small organization.

Imagine the organizations in the US who had 30 AmeriCorps workers.

The company that we were working with, the church, had multiple AmeriCorps workers who helped them with their food kitchen and all kinds of things, gone.

And so we are American foundations helping Americans and now we've lost that.

And so that makes our fundraising this year more critical than ever.

It's really a scary time for nonprofits.

We are worried.

We have a golf outing coming up on July 14th.

That's our major fundraiser.

- Put up the website right now.

If people wanna make a difference and support We've Got Friends.

And I'm sorry Candi for interrupting, go ahead.

- Yeah, I mean, look, I always say like the average person has six friends.

If you committed $6 a month to We've Got Friends, like you do that in a day at Starbucks, right?

But that's an easy way to give month over month and help support an opportunity to give kids with special needs socialization.

My son is not going to college, right?

He literally is like a toddler.

But We've Got Friends is his education, his ability to be social, to be appropriate, to walk in a room, to know how to greet people, to say good morning, give mommy a hug.

Mommy says, "Emerson, I love you."

For him to say "I love you" back, that's how our kids can move through the world in a way that will help them, you know, in life.

And so that's really what We've Got Friends is.

It's the socialization piece that's so important and it's important to us.

Like I said, think about the pandemic, how you felt when you couldn't make those connections.

When my kids walk in a room and they see each other, the joy that you felt the first time you could hug your friend or your family member after the pandemic is how these kids feel every week.

- Lemme just say this to you, to Emerson, your son, to all the young people at We've Got Friends and those who are part of your organization.

We wish you nothing but good things and success in these challenging times.

I say it all the time about our series, Making a Difference.

You are making a huge difference.

You don't need me to tell you that.

And let this not be the last time you join us to update us on what We've Got Friends is doing and consider us one of the friends in your broader community.

Thank you, Candi.

Wish you all the best.

- Thank you so much.

I really appreciate it.

- You got it, stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.

Citizens Philanthropic Foundation.

Delta Dental of New Jersey.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

United Airlines.

The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Congress Hall.

A Cape Resorts property.

And by Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by BestofNJ.com.

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