Not a Trivial Event: The ‘Q’ Was Quite Successful Raising Funds for Long Island NCSY

20 Nov 2007

NOT A TRIVIAL EVENT: THE ‘Q’ WAS QUITE SUCCESSFUL RAISING FUNDS FOR LONG ISLAND NCSY

Here is a “Q” and “A” from Long Island NCSY:

Q: What is The “Q”?

A: It’s a fast-paced, interactive multi-media trivia event that encourages collaborative thinking and team work in order to solve questions covering a myriad of topics ranging from history to pop-culture to Israel to Torah and sports. As one may easily see, its title comes from “questions,” “queries” and “quizzes.”
It’s also a very effective means of raising funds for good causes, with a particularly good cause being Long Island NCSY itself.

This past Sunday evening (November 18) Long Island NCSY hosted its First Annual interactive trivia panoply, The “Q,” at The Lawrence Country Club. In addition to the beautiful décor and delicious buffet dinner served, the evening included an inspiring video presentation about the “new” NCSY and a description by Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, Director of Long Island NCSY, of the various NCSY programs and activities.

Proceeds of The “Q” will go towards sponsoring public school students at Yarchei Kallah (the learning convention during public school winter break) and NCSY’s various summer programs.

According to Rabbi Lightstone, “The “new” NCSY combines kiruv (outreach), seeing and inspiring over 600 public school students a month, and chizuk (education), as NCSY is rapidly becoming the address for chesed (good works) and leadership among yeshiva day school students.”

The programs Rabbi Lightstone described include JSU (Jewish Student Union); FNL (Friday Night Lights); summer programs; Lattes & Learning; and NCSY’s newest program, Project JUMP, which is based on last year’s successful missions to New Orleans.

The evening featured a multi-media presentation, The Last Jew, which gave “Q” participants the opportunity to see some of NCSY’s cutting edge programming in action, as the short film took participants through 3,000 years of Jewish history and “left everyone with a feeling of inspiration and Jewish pride,” said Rabbi Lightstone. “The film made it clear how NCSY so successfully reaches out to unaffiliated teens while inspiring yeshiva day school students.”

Steven (Sruli) Manela of Cedarhurst described the evening as “extremely enjoyable. Since I’m new to the neighborhood my wife and I got to meet new people and find out more about the work NCSY does. I especially enjoyed watching the video presentation, which was a great way to educate the audience about the ‘new’ NCSY.”

The “Q” was a “phenomenal success,” Rabbi Lightstone reports, as he gave special thanks to the event co-chairs – Bernice Jozefs of Woodmere; Chani Klein of Cedarhurst; Bonnie Schertz of Lawrence; and Esther Williams of Lawrence — who “worked tirelessly to ensure that the evening went off flawlessly.”

Rabbi Lightstone expressed his gratitude to Jon Mell and Ben Mantell for creating the “Q” and making the entire evening possible.

He extended congratulations to each member of the Sicklick family of the Five Towns, whose table finished in first place and took home the grand prize of the new and impossible to find Nintendo Weii video game. Each member of the second place team, consisting of members of the Young Israel of Woodmere, received his and her watches sponsored by Armitron.

The evening helped to ensure that Long Island NCSY will be able to continue its critical work as a lifeline to Jewish public school students as well as an inspiration to Jewish teens from all walks of life. As Co-Chair Bonnie Schertz exclaimed, “This was anything but a typical dinner. Everyone had a wonderful time. with the proceeds going to such an important cause.”

For more information about Long Island NCSY, please visit its website at www.lincsy.com or call 516- 569-6279.