The weekend of December 18-20 was an important one for Louisville’s BBYO program. Twenty members of the Jay Levine BBG and Drew Corson AZA chapters traveled to Cincinnati for the Kentucky-Indiana-Ohio BBYO Regional convention, which drew 140 participants from the tri-state area.
Sarah Ensign was elected regional N’siah (president) and Nathan Spielberg was elected regional Shaliach (vice president of community service and Judaism). Sarah is the first N’siah from Louisville since Meredith Thomas in 2001 and the first Louisville BBGer on regional board since Emily Benovitz in 2004. Nathan continues the string of participation of Louisville Alephs on the regional level following Glen Sadle and Daniel Ensign. The delegation also brought home many awards, reflecting the growth and revitalization of the BBYO program in Louisville.
Nathan Spielberg was named AZA (the male division of BBYO) member of the Year, S’gan (vice president) of the Year and Godol (AZA chapter president) of the Year; Sarah Ensign was N’siah (BBG chapter president) of the year; and Hayley Grossman was Morah (chapter Vice President of Membership) of the Year. In addition, Louisville’s bowling program in February was named Recruitment Program of the Year, and Jay Levine BBG was named Chapter of the Year.
While the Regional Convention is a business meeting, the weekend was also packed with activities, including special Shabbat programming and for tikkun olam, the teens made 30 blankets that were donated to the University of Cincinnati Hillel’s Project Warm. There was time for fun, too, as BBYOers were entertained by a hypnotist and went to the Game Zone.
Watch the Community Paper for more BBYO news and dates of upcoming events. If you would like more information about the BBYO program in Louisville contact Justin Sadle at jsadle@jccoflouisville.org or on Facebook at Justin JCC Sadle.