Dear Friends:

Today marks eight months since I stepped into the role as the Executive Director. Nothing could have prepared me for these past few months, but I continue to be grateful to have the support and dedication of our fantastic Board.

Today is also the 70^th day since we closed, and while my son, Noah, can’t yet count to 70, I am grateful today for children. My child, your children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces, and all of our children in our camp, preschool, aquatics, and youth sports programs.

Children are the future, and we can all learn a lot from them. Children are resilient, and if you think about it, we are asking pretty impossible things from them right now. We, as adults, can comprehend why we are staying home now (whether or not we like it). From a child development perspective, children do not develop the ability to understand complex thoughts until they are in their teens (when as any of you who have teenagers or who have worked with teenagers know, come with even more challenges). Think how challenging that is: to adapt to something you can’t comprehend. Yet our children and children around the world just do it. There is a great lesson here for all us about adapting to this current reality and being resilient through it all as we can simply look to our children as guides.

As you may know, I keep changing how I refer to this time that we are in. I first started by saying it was the "new normal", yet, none of this is normal. I then changed to calling it our "current reality", yet current means that there is a future reality, one that many of us are having a hard time wrapping our heads around. Today I read something that changed my thinking and understanding that we are living in an infinite present. No future plans, no anticipation of travel or shows or events or celebrations. Its an endless today and never tomorrow. Children, though (and all of us really), need structure and schedule. It is with children in mind that we started this week planning for that tomorrow, which has remained elusive. We sent out communication this week to our Camp Haverim families, and will be communicating with our preschool families, our intention to reopen our doors next month for summer camp. We will only do this if it is safe to do so and if we can operate both programs under the guidelines of our state and the CDC.

We are not going to reopen because we need the revenue from these programs (although we do) or because we are antsy to return to work (although we are), we are going to reopen because of the NEEDS of our children and families. The term child care is not some luxury, but it is the most critical service we offer because we are caring for the most important things in the world to the people who entrust us to do so. Our families need us, and that is why we are moving forward carefully to ensure that we do everything we possibly can to keep their most prized assets safe and keep everyone healthy. We will need everyone to help us accomplish this service to our families. Our world and our JCC will look very different when we finally move out of this infinite present, but one thing we know is that people will need us to care for the blessings, their children, in their lives.

Rest up and recharge this Shabbat as our children need us all.

Zay Gezund/Be healthy, and Shabbat Shalom,

Scott