Monmouth federation volunteers Rhonda Levy, left, and Nancy Muntner say helping to organize events is fun socially and satisfying as Jews.
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September 21, 2009
Nancy Muntner said she initially wasn’t eager to volunteer for the Jewish community, but once she “got it,” she began to think very differently.
Muntner, a speech pathologist who lives in Marlboro, attended an outreach event of the Jewish Federation of Monmouth County a few years back only because a friend persuaded her to go.
“This particular event was a wine-and-cheese gathering where members of the community were present,” she recalled. “Of course, there was good wine, cheese, and food.”
There was also food for thought: A guest speaker spoke personally about the help available from the federation. “It was very moving to see the actual people that the federation had touched,” said Muntner.
It took several more events before the message fully sunk in, but today Muntner has thrown her energy into organizing the kind of outreach event that drew her in. “I’m there to get more people to have the same ‘ah ha’ moment I had,” she said.
Together with her friend Rhonda Levy, who lives in Manalapan, she recently helped organize a successful martini and wine-tasting event in Red Bank. They have another event lined up for early next year, to encourage current donors to step up their involvement.
That kind of involvement, said federation executive director Howard Gases, is “the key to building a community.” As the federation swings into a new fund-raising year, he said, he sees Muntner and Levy as examples of the kind of personal approach that transforms charitable giving and volunteer work from an obligation to a pleasure.
Both Muntner and Levy said the social side of volunteering, with people they like and who are like-minded, is part of the draw — and what they want to offer other people: enjoyment and the satisfaction of knowing they’re supporting a good cause.
Organizing events with a friend is part of the pleasure. Their children are grown and their husbands, Mitchell Muntner and Jeff Levy, are also supportive or their volunteering.
Levy got involved a few years before Muntner. Her friend Lauren Reich, who became president of federation’s Women’s Philanthropy, invited her to an outreach event. She was looking around for something rewarding to do in her spare time. “It was always in my head to do, and then it just fell into my lap,” she recalled.
A diligent planner and organizer “by nature,” Levy, who teaches Spanish and works with a chiropractor, willingly took on chairing and cochairing outreach events, often with speakers from communities helped by federation. “The more you get involved, the more you learn,” she said. “For people who are just making donations, I think it can seem a bit removed, but when you see for yourself the good our money is doing, it’s very rewarding.”
“I attended several events before I ‘got it,’” said Muntner, a cancer survivor who took part each year in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in New York City. “I realized if I — as a Jewish person— wasn’t going to help raise money for the Jewish people, then who would? As Jewish people, we have to help each other.”
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