Community Rabbi Relay Race is a huge success!!!

What a great run we had!!! Our first 5K Rabbi Relay Race was a huge success as we had over 75 participants from a wide variety of local shuls! Congratulations to our top three finishers, Daniel Ginsburg, Tim Meushaw, and Jacob Namrow, who ran outstanding times despite the intense heat! Gift cards were donated by the Kosher Pastry Oven and The Candy Man for our top finishers!!!

Thank you so much to Ben Yehuda pizza for providing great pizza at our event and donating slices to those who purchased tee shirts for the event. Between the money raised selling pizza, tee shirts, and the cost of the race, our community was able to raise almost $500.00 for JobKatif in Israel!

I would love to extend a tremendous thank you to all of the Rabbis that helped us make this event possible! Rabbi Rosenbaum, Rabbi Greineman, Rabbi Wolvovsky, Rabbi Kosowsky, and Rabbi Chinn were all excited and inspiring, and sacrificed their time to make this a great event! Reading through the answers to the Jewish questions at each of the stations, it is quite evident that the children and adults in our community have a tremendously wonderful connection to Judaism and our culture. Kol Hakavod!

Lastly, I would like to thank the youth committee for helping to run this event, the Kabillio boys for playing music for our entertainment, the entire staff at YISE that did setup and cleanup, the office staff, and the Schreiber and Litwack families for putting out water stations so that our runners could stay hydrated enough to complete the race!

Please be on the lookout for information about our upcoming events! We hope you had a great time, and we loved seeing everyone out and about, doing Jewish activities together!

Brett Kugler
YISE Youth Director

Come Join Us for our MS/HS Open House June 22nd (This Sunday Night)

Looking forward to seeing all of the middle and high school students out this Sunday night in the Arcola social hall. Pics will follow!

2014-2015 YISE YOUTH WELCOME

Welcome to the Young Israel Shomrai Emunah Youth blog. As of July 1, 2014, I have officially taken on the position of Youth Director, and I look forward to an exciting year filled with many wonderful events and activities that embrace the concept of Jewish experiential education. Prior to taking this position, I served on the YISE youth committee, as well as on the shul board. I have been an educator in the community for 10 years, and I continue to work full time at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School as a learning specialist (eight years). Additionally, I have worked at Kol Shalom Talmud Torah for the past five years, two of which were in the role of Director of Experiential Education. I plan to use my prior experiences to meet with leadership and with youth in our community to create a balanced program that will foster a love of Judaism in our children while also having fun.

One of my first initiatives is to create a year at a glance calendar (subject to change) so that all families can put these events on their own schedules and attend as many activities as they would like. Additionally, I hope to send these blog posts to the shul office and have them printed and attached to the Shabbos Shorts in order to share the unique experiences that the children in our community have had and remind families about upcoming events.

Our first event of the summer will be a 5K Rabbi Relay Race to raise money for Tzedakah on July 13, 2014 at 10:30am. The race will start at Shomrai Emunah, will continue to Rabbi Chinn's shul, then Chabad, followed by KMS, SSJC, and ending at Ben Yehuda Pizza for food and festivities. To learn more about this event, and future events, please check the YISE Youth Blog address at www.yiseyouth.blogspot.com. You can also follow past and future events on the YISE Youth facebook page. If you see me in shul, please come over and introduce yourself so that I can continue to get to know the families in our community. I look forward to an incredible year!

Brett Kugler
bkugler@yise.org
Youth Director