We have a little bit of time before the next Super Sunday comes to us. But you should hold the date of November 22^nd anyway. Super Sunday this year will be a little earlier because of Chanuka and other reasons, but it’s still a good date and we’re going to start thinking about how to make it an amazing day.

We received terrific feedback from the volunteers and supporters who came out to Super Sunday this last December. Over 90% of the participants had a positive-to-excellent experience. 91% will volunteer this coming year. And 96% of the responders were “repeaters,” volunteers who have come before and plan to come again. That’s a pretty amazing statement of success.

If you came during the evening session, you’ll have seen an incredible presentation of community spirit and energy. Teens and young callers filled the room with energy and community. I’ve not seen anything quite like it before or since, and we’ll need to capture that energy and continue it. I think we can.

But it’s not enough. We can do more on Super Sunday.

We can do thank-a-thon calls, have a live session from our Israeli partnerships.
We can do more with our marketing and our recruitment.
We can increase the number of on-site vendors and kid-friendly activities.

And we can encourage more synagogue and religious school participation in the day itself. We all believe in teaching our children about tzedaka and community – why not create structures that allow them to be actually present at the biggest community tzedaka event of the year and show our children what tzedaka and community can mean?

Our professional staff came up with a list of over 80 new ideas and recommendations. Our terrific Chairs, Ken Rotter, Ron Silbermann, Steve Weisbrot, Aaron Wolff, and Jessica Wolff also had some terrific ideas. We’ll share some of those closer to the event. If you have some suggestions, send them to my colleague Lauren Saltus, Assistant Community Campaign Director, and we’ll add them to the mix.

Here’s the bottom line: Super Sunday is the heart of who we are as a community.
It’s counter-cultural, in many ways. We’re surrounded by so many cultural pressures to be selfish, to cut ourselves off from the community, to not care.
Super Sunday is the response. It’s about caring, building and saving.
It’s about us.

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