WE ARE KVELLING!

Seeing our community and so many new friends gather together is incredibly powerful. This past weekend, the JCC-Federation of SLO really hit it out of the park. Along with our partner organization, Hillel and our local synagogues and sponsors, the 2nd Annual Jewish Heritage festival was a resounding success. Between an opening night reception and afternoon festival, hundreds of Jews and allies came together to share their pride. 

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Here are some of the highlights:

• The opening reception had every seat sold out and featured a captivating Q&A with the filmmaker of the documentary film TOVAH. Beyond being entertaining, it was also a perfect celebration of embracing Jewish Heritage and community. 
• On Sunday, our Jewish children laughed, got their faces painted, rode a mechanical bull, pet goats, and made art projects. It was phenomenal to see their Jewish Joy on blast and to give them an opportunity to be surrounded by Jews! 
• We saw the faces of longtime supporters and were also thrilled to have many unaffiliated Jewish community members and visitors from all over the state join. 
• Folks signed up to participate in future JCC programming such as the Shebrew Shabbat and Men's Dinner series - and our synagogue partners shared that they had multiple inquiries into new membership at their booths.
• Our partner orgs and vendors had foot traffic that mattered - good conversation and fundraising opportunities galore. What an honor to support the empowerment and stability of our community partners in this way. 
• The music was PHENOMENAL and we just kept dancing as the Chutzpah Collective rocked out for four whole hours. What a gift to have their music bless us and set a celebratory and prideful tone throughout the event. 
• We were supported by multiple local and statewide organizations and community partners that helped underwrite this program. This shows that this sort of programming matters and is in high demand and worth investing in. 

We are already planning the 3rd annual event (next May!) and would love your feedback if you attended or have ideas you'd like to contribute for how we can make this programming resonate even more. We also welcome your support for future community-wide events.

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THANK YOU to all of our partners, sponsors, volunteers, entertainers and to the community members who showed up and displayed their pride during our heritage celebration. Let's do it again soon! 

Cheers,

Janelle Eagle
​Co-President, JCC-Federation of SLO

​A HUGE THANK-YOU TO OUR VOLUNTEERS: Judith Cohen, Debi Burdman-Deutsch, Jerome Becker, Rita Becker, Naomi Blakely, Kristie Burch, Jonathan Burch, JuliAnna Fink, Cody Fink, Aubrey Fleming, Brynn Gray, Wendy Kim, Nitsan Kolikant, Abby Lassen, Beryl Levine, Barry Weinstein, Lauren Yoder, Samara Weiner, Aubrey O’Leary, Becca Shivers.