Congratulations Grinspoon Award Winners!

At the 2010 Grinspoon Institute Conference, the first annual Grinspoon Awards were presented. These were the first awards specifically for the Jewish overnight camping field. Congratulations to all the winners:

Outstanding Achievement in Fundraising:
URJ Henry S. Jacobs Camp

Outstanding Board Leadership:
Efrat Levy, Board President, Camp Shomria New York

Outstanding Development Professional:
Linda Hoffenberg, Director of Institutional Advancement, Camp Ramah in Wisconsin

Impact in Technology ("IT") Award:
Herzl Camp

Outstanding Philanthropist:
The Messinger Family

You can find video of the award ceremony on our website.

Did You Win a FlipCam?

At the conference, we offered two chances to win a free FlipCam. These winners were selected post-conference:

Dena Kaufman (Development Director at Camp Newman) was randomly selected from everyone who submitted a post-conference survey.
Robin Zebnowitz Harpak (Legacy Committee Member at Henry S. Jacobs Camp) was randomly selected from everyone who participated in our Camp Story Booth.

We will be sending the FlipCams out to our lucky winners shortly.

Congratulations to our winners and thanks to everyone for your participation.

Workshop Materials Online Now

Did you hear about a great session at the conference that you missed? Do you want to find the materials from a session you attended? Miss the conference completely? You can find many of the materials discussed in our workshops in our Knowledge Center now.

Conference Multimedia Online

The Grinspoon Institute conference opened with five camp professionals sharing incredible stories of camp. Eric Phelps moderated the discussion to help highlight factors that make stories engage and connect with their audience. Did you miss the session? Or want to watch it again? The video of the opening session (along with additional conference video) is available online now.

A special thank you to our storytellers: Rabbi Ron Klotz, Jody Sperling, Debbie Sussman, Rabbi Loren Sykes, and Molly Wernick.

We have also posted dozens of photographs from the conference on Flickr. Do you have any of your own photos from the conference you'd like to share? Post them on our Facebook Page!

Read All About It!

Interested in putting out a Press Release about your camp's participation or awards at this year's Grinspoon Institute Conference? Feel free to borrow from our Press Release about the conference.

PJ Goes to Camp Launched for Summer 2011

PJ Goes to Camp, in collaboration with the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and the Foundation for Jewish Camp, aims to help 500 children of PJ Library families who wish to attend Jewish overnight camp for the first time during summer 2011

All a PJ family has to do to apply for PJ Goes to Camp is to register their child at the camp of their choice, go to the Foundation for Jewish Camp website, check eligibility requirements, and fill out the application! The process takes about 15 minutes to complete. PJ Goes to Camp scholarships should be an enormous help to families who might not otherwise be able to send their children to camp. If you wish to know more, click here for an informative email sent out to PJ communities across North America.

$1000 grants are available to campers who will be going to a 3 or more week session. $700 grants are also available for children who attend a 12 day session in one of the 13 Western States (AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, and WY).

According to Kirstin Gadiel, the main administrator for the program, applications have been received for over 130 children since late November. And this number is growing steadily! She advises interested families to apply for PJ Goes to Camp grants as soon as possible, as they are given on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please contact Kirstin at kirstin@hgf.org if you have any questions regarding this program.

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