A Personal Story of Early Childhood and Synagogue Collaboration
Yad B Yad Children’s Center and The Syndi Scheck Preschool (YBY) at Temple Emanuel was, and still is, a big dream.
Dreamers can’t just dream, though. Dreamers actually need to have know-how and confidence, and we actually do need a plan. Part of any successful plan is understanding the “what” and examining the “why” before the “how” is even considered.
The most simplified motivation for starting our journey at YBY was the financial need. But when we looked deeper, there were far more important reasons for our community. We like to say that it was beshert – the right Board and the right interim director, all with the right expertise, came together at the right time and with the right strategic plan to allow the growing Temple Emanuel community to keep the preschool in its building.
The greater Phoenix area has the largest growing population of Jews, yet we have one of the least affiliated populations in the country. Our Jewish people are wandering in this desert and are not finding their “larger Jewish homes” in congregations and synagogues. And if they are, they may be considering synagogue membership a worthy investment during the bar and bat mitzvah prep years, but we are somehow missing the conversion to a long-term commitment to membership and building a sense of investing in the greater good.
So where am I going with all this? Sometimes dreams intersect.
- I dream of an amazing school community with amazing teachers, children and families, where teachers are respected, and parents are involved partners.
- Our Board dreams of a congregational community which sustains this vibrancy and engagement throughout a family’s lifecycle and into the future.
- I dream of children so engaged with “the Jewish” within their hearts and souls that it is their way of seeing and being in the world, living lives more meaningful, purposeful and vibrant because of Judaism.
- The Board dreams of sustaining our Temple finances where congregants believe that being a part of something bigger than ourselves is worthy of investment, where we sow the seeds of a future we may never see.
So, a group of us at Temple Emanuel put our dreams -and a little bit of “know how” - together, and initiated a plan to increase enrollment and revenue, attract professional teachers, build a community of caring, and integrate young families and Yad B Yad community into the greater life of the congregation.
I took a financial risk, and temple members, Board members and clergy made a significant investment of time by participating in a Community of Practice that met twice twice monthly with URJ professionals for the past 18 months.
Where are we now? Our shared dreams are coming true.
We are revenue positive for the Temple, and enrollment has more than doubled.
We support varying financial needs with balanced perspective on program needs.
We have 21 full time permanent staff members receiving competitive compensation packages- including paid time off, vacation and sick time.
We have made gigantic strides towards integrating our young families into the greater synagogue community. We co-hosted the first ever meet and greet between religious school teachers and YBY teachers, putting names, faces and goodwill all together to kick off our new year.
Our learning and growing is visible in many ways throughout the Temple Building and on social media. And we make clergy participation visible weekly through live feed so parents can be part of our Shabbat even when they are at work.
Parents have created their own Community of Caring, including a Meal Train to support each other, a Moms’ group and a babysitting co-op. We are an oasis for energetic children as well as respite for tired caregivers.
We are a professional child development center, not day care. We take care of children, not days. We are daily life for East Valley Jewish families. We are community.
We do not take lightly our role as the first connection for a lifetime of Judaism ahead. If we’ve done our job right, our families stay and belong to the greater community in a seamless transition. At this time, we have increased Jewish affiliation to 75% of our families.
Some people tell me I make it look easy. Not one piece of this has been easy.
Yet this is what being Jewish is about… nothing has come easy for our people… what better way to engage our community than through continued collaboration and unique and shared expertise to move forward on a journey toward success.
Tanya Swezey Stabinsky
Yad B Yad Children’s Center and The Syndi Scheck Preschool
Tempe, AZ
April 2019
