Federation executive vice president Stanley Stone aids Sen. Robert Menendez as he makes Super Sunday pledge calls, alongside Bill Hausler and teen volunteers Jessica Feldman.
T-shirt surprise
CONTRARY TO expectations, the Central federation Super Sunday volunteers were provided with T-shirts imprinted with the day’s logo and date.
To save money, planners had decided to forego the usual shirts and had asked volunteers to “recycle” ones from previous years. But when Victor Herman heard about that, it gave him an idea.
“Since printing T-shirts and other garments is my business, that moved my thoughts to how I could use my business to do something to give back to the community.” The Westfield resident had his Kenilworth-based company, T-rificTees, print up over 500 shirts with the Super Sunday logo. He said it was his way of thanking the federation system for support his family received over the years.
The shirts also had, on the sleeves, the words “In Memory of Nina.” Herman’s daughter died eight years ago at the age of 21 as a result of a severe injury. He said he plans to donate shirts again “for as many future years as I am able, and for as many other great functions and efforts of the federation as I can. In this way, I hope that in some small way, Nina’s name will become part of the wonderful Jewish background of helping those in need.”
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December 11, 2008
The Central community rose to the challenge this past Sunday. Despite the toughest economic climate in years, the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey’s Super Sunday phonathon raised $480,000 — a $66,000 increase over last year’s total, from more or less the same number of donors.
Calling was to continue in the week following the Dec. 7 event, with hopes of reaching a goal of $600,000.
“I am absolutely blown away,” said federation president Gerry Cantor, who was among those making calls at the Wilf Jewish Community Campus in Scotch Plains on Sunday.
Cantor said he was delighted on three levels:
“First, that so many of our stakeholders — the people answering the calls, in this terrible economy — maintained their level of giving. Then at our end, that so many ‘federation-niks’ came out to help. They are the people who really get it, who get that we are ‘the firehouse,’ that federation is there for the community 24/7, 365 days a year.
“And then there is staff,” Cantor added. “There was so much work to do, and they did everything so enormously well.”
Even before those totals came in, Super Sunday cochairs Suzanne and Rob Tucker and their co-vice-chairs, Mara Levy and Shari Bloomberg, were looking relieved, cautious but pleased with the turnout and the way the numbers on the total board were climbing.
Assemblyman Jon Bramnick is welcomed to Super Sunday by, from left, Super Sunday cochair Rob Tucker, Central federation executive vice president Stanley Stone, cochair Suzanne Tucker, and Jewish Community Relations Council cochair Gordon Haas.
Photos by Elaine Durbach
A lot of people, the Tuckers said, had teased them about picking one of the toughest years in a long while to chair.
The Tuckers also fretted about a blizzard like the one that forced the cancellation of Super Sunday 2006. “We were watching the forecasts by the hour,” Suzanne said.
At around 10 p.m. on Saturday night, reassured that only a light snowfall was predicted, she relaxed. They slept well, Rob said, “because we knew we had to,” given the day that lay ahead.
A chilly wind — and a Giants game — may even have helped by keeping people indoors and ready to receive calls from volunteers phoning to ask for their pledges.
The scene at the Wilf campus was festive and bustling, as always on this largest federation get-together of the year. Around 400 volunteers were there to help.
This year, a number of volunteers opted to take on other tasks rather than make calls, reluctant to ask people for money in this financial climate. One woman said her stomach was turning at the mere thought. But others said it just took a little more tact than usual and assurances that any amount was welcome.
Some did get indignant responses from people upset that they were called. Eric Leyden, a 15-year-old who volunteered together with his mother, Dina, said one man yelled at him, but he took on another batch of calls, quite undeterred. Bill Hausler said a woman told him her children were helping out. She would have liked to give, she said, but given the circumstances, she felt she couldn’t. Hausler, a longtime volunteer and community leader, said, “What more could I say to her?”
Most people who felt unable to give, simply said so. In response, volunteers asked if they could use help from the federation. If the answer was yes, their information was noted, to be passed on to Jewish Family Service of Central New Jersey or another agency. Most, though, declined the offer of help.
Certain volunteers — not from the local community — felt the pressure of numerous NJ federations holding their Super Sundays on the same day. U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez said he had come from another Super Sunday and was heading off to lend a hand at a few more.
On a more somber note, referring to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Dist. 17), who was born in India, told the crowd that India’s Jewish community had lived without fear of discrimination for centuries, and the attack had shattered that trust.
Training the teen volunteers, Super Sunday committee member Joan Leventhal told them that the violence in Mumbai underlined the Super Sunday theme, “that we are one people and one community.”
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