Community Views

Opinion

GARY DEMBS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

F

or the past year or so, Yad
Ezra, the community's
only all kosher emergency
food pantry, has been
struggling with the roles and re-
sponsibilities of its board of di-
rectors. What should the
executive committee be doing?
How many more board mem-
bers should we add? Do we put
together an advisory board of

prominent leaders for credibil-
ity's sake to attract greater fi-
nancial support?
These questions are germain
not only to Yad Ezra. Every
board at one time or another
struggles with these issues on
a variety of levels. And there
are plenty of agencies getting it
right.
It is often said that board
members must exhibit the three
W's of volunteerism: work,
wealth and wisdom. Most im-
portantly, boards need to be rep-
resentative of the community
and be willing to act in leader-
ship roles to best represent the
agency's mission internally and
externally.
When that stewardship be-
comes lax, when boards become
too big and focus on mission is

Gary Dembs is president of the
Non-Profit PR Network of
Southeastern Michigan, mar-
keting chair of the National So-
ciety of Fundraising Executives
— greater Detroit Chapter and
co-founder of Yad Ezra.

lost, you hve the recipe for
avoidable disaster. You also lose
the ability to get a real grasp on
ever-changing community
needs. Unfortunately, we have
seen that recipe too often in our
Jewish community in recent
years in areas crucial to the fab-
ric of our lives. Borman Hall is
but one glaring example.
Before Yad Ezra began in

1990, those investigating the ex-
tent of Jewish poverty in metro
Detroit found the numbers to be
far greater than what was be-
ing addressed by current insti-
tutions. Bypassing bureaucracy
and the benign disinterest of
some community leaders who
stated that..."Jewish hunger is
not a major problem and peo-
ple's needs are being met...," a
group of dedicated volunteers
opened Yad Ezra in just four
months.
In Yad Ezra's case, with lit-
tle fine tuning, we have a board
and executive committee in
place dedicated to marketing
our sole mission of feeding the
Jewish needy. The agency has
struck a nerve among those
looking to get involved finan-
cially and otherwise in a more
direct way.
Unfortunately, Jewish fund
raising has become too reliant
on the "who do you know who
can give" syndrome rather than
searching the community for
those who can provide greater
wisdom and more fruitful work

— true leadership.
Let me not be misunderstood.
Federation and its member
agencies have done an incredi-
ble number of positive things
over the years. Without the
framework that Federation pro-
vided, hundreds of community
needs would not have been met.
But in order to move us all into
the next century, organized
fund-raising
mechanisms must
have a better
grasp of how com-
munity needs are
determined and
met.
It is up to each
of us to challenge
leadership and be-
come leaders our-
selves. How our
donated dollars
are spent should
be our decision.
Where we lend
our support is
very personal. If
our contributions
are being mis-
spent, even with
good intentions,
here or abroad,
then we must
speak out for
greater account-
ability.
There are al-
ternatives and
hope. Yad Ezra is
one example.
JARC has been
doing it right for
years. Kadima is
"moving forward"
is serving the
Jewish mentally
ill. Even human
service areas like AIDS, do-
mestic violence and child abuse
are being addressed by those
risk takers who embrace the
three W's. These are the folks
who represent the fourth W —
we — as in "We can't pretend
that these social ills aren't real-
ly a problem in the Jewish com-
munity."
Jewish history, recent and
otherwise, has shown our peo-
ple to be compassionate and giv-
ing. What I believe we have
come back to is the core of social
justice and a greater focus on
the fabric that weaves our com-
munity's tapestry.
This is a challenge to current
and future leaders. Demand ac-
countability. Get involved in
causes that matter to you and
become accountable to yourself
as a volunteer and as board
members. In the end, those pro-
viding a true measure of work,
wealth and wisdom are the only
ones we can really count on to
provide us with a true measure
of tzedakah.

❑

Saying Kaddish For
The Boy Next Door

GAIL ZIMMERMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
ust over two weeks ago, I
told my children how I
learned about the death of
President John F. Kennedy
over the public address system
as a 10th-grader at Oak Park
High School. I recalled the shock,
the numbness and the feeling of
indescribable sadness.
T ast week, my 10th-grade son
and his fellow students at
Berkley High School heard an
announcement over the public
address system concerning the
death of a classmate. And there
was shock and numbness and
a feeling of indescribable sad-
ness.
The local TV news reported
the death of 15-year-old Daniel
Joseph Kellerman as one of
5,000 teen suicides which occur
in the United States each year. Daniel Kellerman
But to his family, friends and
community, Danny Kellerman traying Peter Yarrow of Peter,
Paul & Mary fame for our seg-
was more than a statistic.
ment on the 1960s.
He was the kid who always
He said no at first, but after
had that grin on his face. As Rab-
some
coaxing, he flashed me that
bi Lane Steinger described it to
grin
and
agreed to do it.
almost 700 mourners at the Ira
I'll
always
remember Danny
Kaufman Chapel, that smile was
leading
his
friends
in the cast
"all at once shy and sly and wry."
And it masked a private and un- and his friends and neighbors in
reachable pain which Danny the audience, bridging genera-
kept hidden from those of us who tions and swaying softly togeth-
er as we all sang "Blowin' in the
watched him grow up.
Wind."
The small Huntington Woods
For a long time, we'll be ask-
community is a close one — al-
most like having extended fam- ing why Danny decided not to
ily living on every block. We talk choose life. He had a loving fam-
of "our kids," and the affection ily, friends who cared for him,
we feel for them comes from a school and community who
watching them as a group grow valued him for who he was.
up together. Last week, we all
lost one of "our children," and our
children lost a good friend.
We talk of
All of us have special memo-
"our kids," and
ries of Danny. Some of us re-
member him playing basketball
the affection we
on the driveway with "the guys."
Others remember coaching him feel for them comes
in baseball and watching him de-
from watching
velop into a fine pitcher.
Some of us remember watch-
them as a group
ing him every summer, board-
ing the Camp Tamarack bus
grow up together.-
with friends with whom he
shared his love of camping. Oth-
ers remember him becoming a
I hope that with time, the
bar mitzvah at Temple Emanu-
El, dancing up a storm at par- shock and numbness and inde-
ties, racing exuberantly across scribable sadness will melt away
the finish line at cross-country — for Danny's family, his friends
and his community. And I hope
meets or getting into mischief.
We all remember his kind that the memory of that special
heart, his funny sense of humor smile will stay with us always.
The Kellerman family is es-
and that ever-present grin.
tablishing
a living memorial in
My special memory of Danny
goes back about five years when Danny's memory at Berkley High
he was a fifth-grader at Burton School. The Daniel Kellerman
Elementary School. I was work- Memorial Fund will establish
ing on a school talent show a crisis intervention program at
which looked back on Burton's Berkley High School in hopes of
60-plus years of history. I asked preventing the trugedy of teen sui-
Danny if he would consider por- cide. Memorial contributions
may be sent to the Daniel Keller-
man Memorial Fund, Berkley
Gail Zimmerman is a Huntington High School, 2325 Catalpa,
Woods parent and a Jewish Berkley, MI 48072. ❑
News staff member.

til

LI I_ L./ L- I VI U L_ I I

The Three W's of Volunteerism:
Work, Wealth, Wisdom