Many years ago one of my good friends described NCJW as “the Jewish Junior League”. When my husband and I started our family I started to work part time rather than full time and was looking for a volunteer life. Arlene Redfield was a Vice President of NCJW and asked me to become Program Chairman. Remembering the earlier description of the organization, I told her I was not interested. I wanted to direct my energies to furthering the quality of life within the Jewish community. There was to be a NCJW national meeting in Chicago and Billie Barak, our section President, suggested I attend to judge for myself the level of Jewish projects under our umbrella. I went, I saw, I was conquered! During the next eight years I sat on many committees, made many new interesting friends and felt what we did make a difference. Our section was project, rather than advocacy oriented, and the shining star was The Orchards. It was a great experience to co-chair this project with Rosalie Colbert. We undertook the first serious fundraising Council did to help subsidize this project. I learned many new skills during this volunteer phase of my life from my work with both NCJW and Women’s Division of Federation, which prepared me for a career change after moving to Chicago.

Fast forward 22 1/2 years.  Kids grown up, left home for far away places and Max and I returned home to Detroit. Gerry Levin, still CEO of The Orchards, was the guest speaker at the monthly Board meeting. We had continued our friendship during my exile and so I was asked to be a guest at the meeting. Shortly after Marti Rosenthal, who was President, asked me to co-chair a new project, doing a bimonthly Sunday brunch program for Kadima clients.  After accepting, it wasn’t long before I was asked to sit on the Board again. New Board members are asked to attend a national meeting and when Myrna Edgar asked me if I would go I told her it was a waste of Council money, as they were not going to get much mileage out of me. That was 1996. Since then I have sat on and/or chaired many committees, served as Vice President of Fundraising when AKP became a reality and experienced a reversal when the skills I developed as a professional fundraiser served me well in my return to the volunteer sector. Sally Schottenfels gets special credit for teaching me how to read (interpret) a budget. I fought it, but she would not relent and of course she was right.  SO because of my service with NCJW/GDS I learned new skills, used old ones, became fast friends with some superb women and met many others but most importantly helped make a difference.