By Jacqueline Faerman, PR Manager

One of the most exciting parts about working at JF&CS is that no matter the time of year, something is always happening to make the community a better place. I started at JF&CS as Public Relations Manager in early February and was immediately swept into the excitement; shortly after my arrival, the Ben Massell Dental Clinic and IndependenceWORKS each hosted beautiful events to benefit these valuable programs.

Now, seven months later, I am still working through my first full year of events – and after a brief summer of downtime I had the opportunity in September to attend our Young Professionals Mitzvah Day.

One of my objectives on Mitzvah Day was to immerse myself in as many JF&CS related activities as possible. Rather than choosing one project to work on, I bounced around as many of the various projects we offered to our volunteers. I was able to enjoy and witness so much great work over the day.

I started out in the IndependenceWORKS building working alongside volunteers and clients to build care packages for our Direct Support Professionals, as well as gift bags for our older adult programs. I had fully intended to spend a while, but with so many people working so well together I admit my presence was not greatly missed when I flitted over to another project. Over the course of the day, I listened to Cherie Aviv talk about our Aviv Older Adult Services and Cafe Europa, I got to help assemble sensory kits for therapy clients of the Horwitz-Zusman Child & Family Center, and couldn’t help but grin while writing notes and affirmations for both employees and older adults who would be receiving Rosh Hashana care packages.

The day ended with a delightful happy hour in our office, and I left with a full heart and a smile on my face. It takes a lot of work to keep a place like JF&CS going, but you’d never know it from the palpable joy and easygoing personalities of each staff member running Mitzvah Day.

The faces of both our volunteers and our clients are not ones that will escape my head anytime soon. All I can say is that these are people who want to be here. They feel passionate enough about our work to spend their Sunday with us – many for several years in a row!

I am fortunate to work at the same place that I want to volunteer with. If you’d like to learn more about what we do, or how to get involved, please click here.