jcc maccabi
Maccabi Games 2008
CAM'S .
ON THE COVER
www.2008detroltore
Volunteer Central
How to organize 2,019 volunteers into 4,753 jobs and still stay sane.
Elizabeth Applebaum
Special to the Jewish News
The Detroit Numbers
Delegations: 59
Athletes: 2,700
Coaches: 700
Largest delegations: host Detroit,
513 athletes; Los Angeles, 118
Countries: Israel, Canada, Great
Britain, Hungary, Mexico, Venezuela,
United States
Sports: 14
Teams: 170
Venues: 20
Volunteers: thousands
F
ortunately, her daughter was
nowhere in sight. A child should
never have to see her own mother
do this sort of thing.
"Working together is the smart way
to get the job done!" Donna Sklar sings
in full voice to a room filled with adult
volunteers. A few join in as she continues
in song, her voice clear and, yes, chipper:
"Working together is cooperation!" Others
continue entering data in computers,
preparing cards for volunteers, sorting
through files.
And then, the confession: "My daugh-
ter is so happy not to be here Sklar says
when she finishes the song. "She would be
mortified."
Or maybe not, because this is no ordi-
nary mom.
Sklar is volunteer par excellence — the
volunteer in charge of all other volunteers
who, these days, are working from sunrise
to sundown, helping with virtually every
aspect of the 2008 JCC Maccabi Games.
SIdar's daughter, Karen Gordon, is director
of the Games.
A phone being installed. Three volun-
teers working on computers. A group of
volunteers organizing at a table. Boxes.
Bottles of water and cups of coffee.
Timetables and plans. Stacks of papers.
Maccabi I.D. tags. A bag of cookies ...
Welcome to Maccabi Volunteer Central
Station in the basement of the Jewish
Community Center of Metropolitan
Detroit in West Bloomfield.
The volunteers range in age from 6 to 96
— all 2,019 of them "so far," Sklar says, a
bit of a pixie gleam in her eye. If you talk
to her, she's sure to bring you in to vol-
unteer. There's still time to step forward!
Many of the 4,753 volunteer job shifts
have been filled — but not all.
Every day it's something new here.
One morning ifs a group of older adults
coordinating schedules for other volun-
teers. It's men and women like these, Sklar
says, who truly make the Games possible.
"Maccabi is a sports movement for youth:'
she says. "But it wouldn't happen without
the senior citizens. They are wonderful."
They're also masters of detail. Job shifts
— days and times — have been preprint-
ed on stickers. Now they need to be placed
on cards for each individual volunteer. But
you have to be careful:
One man might volunteer to be a coach,
2008 Maccabi Sites:
San Diego, Aug. 3-8
Akron, Aug. 10-15
Detroit, Aug. 17-22
ArtsFest:
Fairfax, Va., July 27-Aug. 1
Minneapolis, Aug. 17-22
Volunteer Reva Berman sorts credentials.
to serve food and to work at the opening
ceremonies; his wife might volunteer to
serve food only. So the husband's stickers
will have to be removed from three dif-
ferent sets, while his wife's will be on one
only.
And they cannot share a single card
because, as Sklar explains: "You're born by
yourself. You die by yourself. You volunteer
by yourself:"
And this is simply one tiny, tiny, tiny bit
of the work.
Marlene Bresler of West Bloomfield has
been volunteering with Maccabi for as
long as she can remember. There's only
one reason: "It's a good cause she says.
This year, she's looking forward to see-
ing granddaughters Meagan and Allison
Margolis of Bloomfield Hills play tennis in
the Games.
Lily Broner of West Bloomfield is vol-
unteering and is set to host three athletes
from New York, while Marlene Nessel of
Farmington Hills has been a volunteer
with Maccabi for decades. She has a pic-
ture of herself, running down Drake Road
with Lisa Tommi Levick, her first grand-
child, who later went on to participate in
the Games.
Lois Rubin of Farmington Hills will
help check in athletes and serve food. Her
grandson, Matthew Rosenfeld, is corn-
ing from Baltimore to participate in the
Games and the family is coming in to
watch him.
Larry Harwin of West Bloomfield is
here thanks to his daughter, who "volun-
teered me to be a soccer coach" at the first
Maccabi Games in Detroit in 1984. He and
his wife, Maxine, have hosted athletes, as
well, and they stay in touch with some of
their former guests, like Larry Becker of
San Francisco who is, by the by, "looking
for a nice Jewish girl',' Harwin says.
So what does it take to get all this orga-
nized? An extremely organized person, of
course.
That is not Donna Sklar — or so she
insists.
"Are you kidding?" she asks, standing
in the middle of a room where Maccabi
credentials are being passed out. It looks
organized. If you're a host family, pick up
your papers at one stop; if you're volun-
teering, start at another. Then move on to
get identification, packets, T-shirts.
"I'm not organized. What I can do is tell
everybody else what to do."
Among her volunteers are two young
women she insists she cannot live without.
First is Reva Berman, 20, of Farmington
Hills, who came to Maccabi thanks to
a sister, a former Maccabi athlete who
played softball and volleyball and "loved
Berman says.
These days, Berman spends a lot of time