To Life!/Teens

Yad Ezra volunteer Bernie Jonas of West Bloomfield sorts the Maccabi athletes' contributions after they are weighed.

Running Up The Score

Teen athletes prep for Maccabi Games with community service.

Alan Hitsky

Latin American countries and Israel,
nightly social activities, Shabbat events
and a community service component.
dult volunteers with the JCC
For three Games, Jodi Neirynck of
Maccabi Games have always
Northville has been pushing community
service. One of the Detroit Maccabi Club's
stressed that the annual sum-
two tennis coaches, she also serves as the
mer event for Jewish teens is much more
than athletics.
club's community service coordinator,
providing opportunities for
each of the teen athletes
to fulfill their two-hour
Maccabi community service
requirement. In addition,
each Maccabi host site has a
community service day for
all the delegations during
the Games.
At the Yad Ezra kosher
food bank in Berkley on
July 22, some 20 Maccabi
athletes and their coaches
Brandon Epstein, 15, of Bloomfield Hills and Jolie
donated 200 pounds of food
Schare and Hannah Berman, both 16 and from
and then bagged plums,
Farmington Hills, pose with apples at the conveyor.
potatoes and Shabbat
candles for two hours. The
group even pulled weeds behind the ware-
While sports are the core of Maccabi for
Jewish 13-to-16-year-olds, other highlights house before they were done.
A second group of Maccabi athletes will
are living with host families, meeting teens
from throughout the United States, Canada, volunteer at Yad Ezra on Aug. 5.

Associate Editor

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28

August 2 r 2007

On July 22, soccer teammates Rachel
Salle and Alissa Neff patiently took pota-
toes from a 50-pound bag and placed
three at a time into plastic bags. Both had
worked at Yad Ezra once before, Neff with
her mom and Salle with her Adat Shalom
Hebrew school class from Farmington
Hills.
The two first-time Maccabi athletes talk-
ed about their expectations for the Games:
Salle, 14, from West Bloomfield, said her
mom thought Maccabi would be a "fun
Jewish thing over the summer and I love
playing soccer." She also liked the commu-
nity service aspect.
Neff, 13, of Orchard Lake and a team-
mate of Salle's on a travel soccer team, said
her sister and friends had participated in
Maccabi and they "had a lot of fun and
met people from out of state."
Neirnyck (pronounced near ink) is a
firm believer in the total Jewish experience
of Maccabi. And she's pushing the service
component. If the athletes are at camp
early in the summer, she asks the camps
to help the teens complete their Maccabi
commitment. Next year, she wants partici-

Score on page 30

Maccabi alumnus Eric Wolfe and athlete

Shelby Popkin, 14, of Bloomfield Hills

put plums in plastic bags.