The Power Of One
Volunteer Impact honors its founder,
Liz Kanter Groskind.
DIANA LIEBERMAN
Special Writer
Wednesday,
October 27th, 2004
7pm -10pm
.olio tic for an intematmal celebration
of food md wine, ftDatunrig or,T 30 of Metro
Detroit's best restaurants, r exhibit by a
select group of Israeli artists
and a silent auction
For tickets or additional information, please contact Marc Berke at 248-661-5700.
David Flaisher
Your Township Supervisor
He gets things done!
He led the efforts to achieve:
- New Bike Paths
- New Fire Station (fully staffed)
- Freeze on Water Rates from Detroit for 2 years
- Federal funds for Orchard Lake Improvements
- Interest savings of $1.5 million for early bond retirements
- Saved $100,000 on Gypsy Moth Administration
- Saved $200,000 by reworking employee benefit programs
- Implemented West Nile Virus prevention program
- Implemented hazardous waste collection days
4IN
10/ 8
2004
26
Member - Adat Shalom Synagogue
Member - Orchard Lake Middle School PTO
Paid for by Committee to Elect David Flaisher for West Bloomfield Township Supervisor, 5532 Dunmore, West Bloomfield, MI 48322
0
I wasn't even looking to get paid.
They needed volunteers; they just did-
n't know what to do with them."
For Groskind and her friends, all
20-somethings with careers, commit-
ting to eight hours once a week was a
dicey proposition. "The people I
dragged with me found that volun-
teering doesn't have to be onerous,"
she says. "It doesn't have to be every
Sunday. It doesn't have to be the same
thing every time."
With Groskind's organizational
skills and experience, it was only a
step from informally gathering togeth-
er a dozen friends for a day at Habitat
for Humanity to founding a 501(c)3
nonprofit organization.
"The phrase that comes to mind
when I think about Liz is, 'Never
underestimate the power of one,"' says
Volunteer Impact board trustee Marcy
Fisher of Bloomfield Township, an
organizer of the Oct. 14 event.
n Thursday, Oct. 14, former
Detroiter Liz Kanter Groskind
will receive the 2004 Founder's
Award from Volunteer Impact, the
nonprofit volunteer service group she
began here in 1990.
Several hundred leaders of Detroit-
area charitable and business organiza-
tions will gather at Detroit Country
Day School's Seligman Performing
Arts Center in Beverly Hills for the
event. Chairing the festivities will be
writer and radio personality Mitch
Albom and comic Ken Brown, his
sidekick on WJR-FM. The Detroit
Free Press, where Albom is a colum-
nist, has signed on as corporate spon-
sor.
Not bad for a woman who never set
out to start an organization.
"When I moved back from Boston
in 1989, all I was looking to do was
volunteer," says Groskind, now 42
Volunteers And Needs
and the mother of two, who studied
At Volunteer Impact, headquartered
economics and Judaic studies at
in the Advance Building at Greenfield
Brandeis University.
and Nine Mile roads in Southfield,
After graduating, she spent the next
executive director Joan Bodnar pub-
few years in Boston, volunteering in
lishes a monthly newsletter
various community organiza-
outlining specific dates and
tions while building a presti-
projects that need volun-
gious career in marketing and
teers, with updated infor-
human resources. Among her
mation available on the
employers was the State of
group's
Web site
Israel's office of investment and
o
cr. vvvvvv.volunteerimpact.org
trade, where she worked with
cr sr More than 400 organiza-
New England businesses on
tions list meaningful
cooperative research and devel-
opportunities with
opment projects and coordinat-
Volunteer Impact, and
ed marketing activities between
Groskind
11,000 individuals, fami-
Israel and the United States.
lies and business groups
In her spare time, she helped
start City Year, a Boston-based nation- volunteer their time. The organization
has an annual budget of about
al youth service program for young
people. She also was a charter member $200,000, and Bodnar is the only
paid employee.
of the city's AIDS Action Committee.
The Founder's Award evening also is
When she returned to Detroit, one
a fund-raising opportunity, with tick-
of her first priorities was getting
ets ranging from $250 for preferred
"plugged in" to volunteer opportuni-
seating and pre-glow to $100 and $50
ties in her hometown. She picked up
for regular seating.
the phone and made a few calls. And
Among those in the audience will
a few more calls. She left messages.
be Leah Rosenbaum, executive vice
She left more messages. She was trans-
president and chief operating officer
ferred from one functionary to anoth-
of JVS. Last spring, Groskind com-
er.
"The negotiating for me to volunteer pleted two years as chair of the JVS
Board of Trustees.
was ridiculous," she remembers. "And