From left, Christine Braho, Mark Robinson, Mark Petrosky and Cathie Petrosky sit down to dinner last month as part of a monthly friends group for adults with special needs. Braho founded the group with Nancy Robertson.

Nancy Robertson of Butler Township and Christine Braho of Summit disagree on when their friendship club started — Robertson says it was 2010 while Braho said it began in 2009 — but they both agreed on the club's mission.

That was to provide higher functioning mentally challenged adults with a social outlet.

“It was basically having lunch together,” said Robertson. “Her son had cerebral palsy, and we started talking about that.

Braho said, “We knew each other before we started the club. We worked together at an agency in the 1980s.”

“She's a speech therapist and I have a background in special education.

“We basically put our heads together,” Robertson said. “Interviewing her son, he didn't have a lot of friends.”

The mission of the club was to change that.

Robertson said, “We can start a club for adults who are living on their own with some support help but are basically isolated.”

Braho said, “We are not associated with an agency. We are just two private individuals. I have a son in the club.

“We have 12 to 15 members and we meet once a month for dinner and a game night. Once a month we are out in the community, going somewhere,” Robertson said.

She said the friendship club meets once a month at Abba's House, 320 W. Main St., Saxonburg.

This is an excerpt from a story that ran in Friday's Butler Eagle.