Thomas Wissinger
By Thomas Wissinger
“Every number tells a story.” If you happened to be walking through the Trager Family JCC and heard someone mention this phrase, you’d probably notice any staff member within earshot letting out an audible sigh, while rolling their eyes so hard they might give themselves a headache. Why? Well, “every number tells a story” is one of my most often- used phrases — typically brought up when talking about fiscal performance and budgeting in general. And as we all know, budgeting is not everyone’s most favored activity.
However, when you think about it, the phrase, “every number tells a story” can be applied far more widely than an adjunct to accounting. Professionally, here at the Trager Family JCC we look at numbers to tell us everything from evaluating the success or failure of a program, understanding our volunteer engagement, and assessing solicitation efforts and corresponding returns. Personally, think about how this phrase applies to your everyday life. How old are you? How many cities/countries have you traveled to? How many kids do you have? Each of those answers is a number, but a number that is only the start of one’s own personal story. All our life journeys are made up of numbers, big and small. So, if you will indulge me, I would like to tell you a little bit more about the Trager Family JCC through my passion for numbers and the stories they tell.
170 and 1. There are approximately 170 Jewish Community Centers and Jewish Camps that make up the Jewish Community Center Association of North America (JCCA), of which the Trager Family JCC is one of its members. However, ours is the only JCC (1) in the state of Kentucky. I have come to view these two figures, 170 and 1, as two of the most important numbers when telling our own JCC story. As the number 170 represents, the Trager Family JCC is one component of a much larger mission of Jewish communal agencies across the continent. It is sometimes easy to forget that our mission in Louisville, Ky. is part of a broader mandate that extends not only across North America, but around the world. However, because the Trager Family JCC is the only JCC in our city and state, we must never hesitate in our responsibility to serve our Louisville Jewish community — while being a resource for Jewish families and individuals from across Kentucky. For example, this past summer we were proud to bring a contingent of young Jewish athletes from across the commonwealth to the Maccabi Games held in Detroit, Mich., where young athletes could feel a sense of community with other young Jewish people in the U.S. and beyond.
14 and 2. As I mentioned, being the only JCC in an entire state can sometimes lead our staff to feel disconnected from the national JCC movement. If you think about it, our closest JCC “neighbor” is over 90 minutes away in Cincinnati. Therefore, identifying opportunities to connect with other JCC’s nationally is vital to invigorating our staff locally. This fall, we had the opportunity to send 14 staff members to two (2) regional JCC conferences in Youngstown, Ohio and Charlotte, N.C. Our Louisville staff members who attended these conferences were able to connect with their JCC peers from Orlando to Detroit, Kansas City to Atlanta. These regional JCC conferences encourage participants to share best practices, mutual struggles, and common program initiatives. Yet I’ve always felt that the biggest takeaway from these conferences was feeling linked to a larger movement — a movement boasting international scope – while acknowledging the responsibility that comes with such membership.
8,500 and 14,000. So why I am telling you about these conferences? Coming to Louisville more than a decade ago, I was told that we have approximately 8,500 Jewish individuals in our community. But the 2022 Brandeis University-led Study of Jewish Louisville revealed that we have approximately 14,000 Jewish individuals in Louisville. With this new and exciting information, our Trager Family JCC’s goal is to not only continue serving the community that we know, but to find ways to engage community members that we don’t know… yet. Attending JCCA conferences and connecting with peers in other communities helps us to continue evolving and elevating our current programming to the high standard that the Louisville Jewish community expects and deserves, while enabling us to bring back strategies and tactics from other communities who have had success in finding and connecting with “new” individuals in their own communities. Why reinvent the wheel when our neighbor down the street, or across the continent, has one that we can bring back and utilize in Louisville
12,500, 250, 165 and 1. Thank you for indulging me telling the Trager Family JCC’s story through numbers, but please bear with me as I give you just a few more. Since the opening of the Trager Family JCC in April 2022, our JCC membership has doubled, now comprising more than 12,500 members. Our Camp J hosted, on average, 250 kids per week this past summer, while our Early Learning Center, in the Roth Family Education Center, welcomes 165 kids through its doors every day of the year. All of the aforementioned numbers are historic marks for each program, respectively. However, even when considering these large numbers and the fantastic growth shown in many of our programs, the most important number to all of our staff is one (1). Each and every day, we want to make the Trager Family JCC your home away from home. The place where you can get away to escape the pressures of the day, if only for an hour, or the Center where you find out more about yourself, engage with your community or explore your own culture. Every individual who walks through our doors, one person at a time, is our priority. Whether you have been here before or have never seen the inside of the Trager Family JCC, come on over and let us show you how important you are.
Thomas Wissinger is Vice President of the Jewish Community of Louisville and Executive Director of the Trager Family JCC.