How LifeTown, A Simulated City In New Jersey, Is Helping Children With Autism

Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum is a cofounder and executive director of LifeTown – a nonprofit, nonsectarian 53,000-square-foot educational and recreational center for children and adults with special needs in Livingston, New Jersey.

Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum and his wife, Toba Grossbaum, a special needs educator, took it upon themselves to galvanize the community around promoting the wellbeing and futures of individuals with autism. They started with the Friendship Circle initiative, inviting teenage volunteers to buddy up with children with special needs, providing them with more avenues for social interaction and community building. The response from parents, volunteers, and the local community was overwhelming: the program’s popularity led to the LifeTown project, which attracted more than 5,000 donors and has already raised $19 million.

Julia Brodsky: Please tell me more about the center and the activities it offers.

Zalman Grossbaum: The focal point of the center is an indoor simulated city where schools, families, and educators bring students to practice life skills in a safe, welcoming, controlled environment. For example, students can go into a bank, withdraw real money, and go shopping in fifteen fully functioning stores. We also have an indoor park, a beautiful gym with special acoustic settings, a multi-sensory exploration room, a dance room, an art room, and a tactile center. We are building a bowling alley and finishing a zero-entry swimming pool. We also have a football field, which the NFL and New York Jets put in for us.

LifeTown is not confined to individuals with special needs. We invite the entire community to enter their world. As people interact here at LifeTown, it naturally impacts everyone’s life in the outside world. Over the past 21 years, we’ve had over seven thousand teens volunteer for us, and hundreds of them have gone on to pursue careers in the special education related fields.

Brodsky: It sounds like the center raises a lot of awareness about accessibility. Does LifeTown help neurodiverse teenagers gain employment skills?

Grossbaum: Transitioning to the adult world may be frightening for many neurodiverse students and their parents. LifeTown provides opportunities for younger children to get the first taste of that world and gain more independence. For older students, LifeTown offers actual job training skills: putting together bouquets of flowers, creating crafts, gaining hospitality skills. It all translates readily to real work. But while it is important to have job skills, it is even more important that each and every individual is living a fulfilling and meaningful life. Just like everyone, neurodiverse individuals want their work to make a difference. When they join the workforce, they bring both a new perspective and their desire to be productive members of the society – which, in turn, changes the workforce culture and community for the better. 

Brodsky: Thanks to the tremendous impact LifeTown, many people wish they had a center like it in their community. What could be the first step in that direction?

Grossbaum: Every person can make a difference in their local community. Covid highlighted the importance of social interaction, not just for those with special needs but also for others who live alone, such as many older individuals. Perhaps some people who live on your block are socially isolated. Sometimes all it takes to bring someone out of isolation is a “Hello!” and a friendly smile. Even the smallest kind gesture can be contagious in the positive sense, influencing people across the globe. And I have no doubt that the giver gains more than the receiver. When you transform someone’s life, it also changes yours. As a society, we need to start thinking along these lines.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.