American Special Children's Pilgrimage Group (Organization Overview‪)‬

The American Special Children's Pilgrimage Group (ASCPG) was founded in 1995, under the philosophical umbrella of the England-based Pilgrimage Trust (HCPT), the organization that began this special kind of group pilgrimage in the 1950s. Each year, the Pilgrimage Trust makes the journey during Easter Week, and the children and young adults with disabilities stay in the same hotel as their caretakers, instead of in a hospital or hospice, as had been the custom with previous pilgrimage groups. (To learn more about HCPT, visit http://www.eparent.com/main_channels_family_community/index.asp.) Since its inception, the nonprofit ASCPG, based in Bergenfield, New Jersey, has been operated entirely by volunteers, working in close conjunction with HCPT and its members yet functioning as a separate entity. ASCPG co-founder and chairman, Gerry Flood, became involved with the Pilgrimage Trust in his native Ireland in 1979, helping to raise funds for the pilgrimages. He had never made the journey himself. Tough economic times in Ireland precipitated his move to the United States. "The idea never left me," he says, of the pilgrimage groups. With the help of HCPT headquarters in England, as well as his friend Joe Earley, who has worked with the Irish Pilgrimage Trust (IHCPT), Flood and his wife Rosemarie founded ASCPG in November 1995.