Keep It Up

Golda Meir once said, “I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.” My name is Nicole Siegel and I am the proud founder and chair of Howard County’s Teen Campaign. I am 16 years old and a rising junior at River Hill High School. When I was in 8th grade I was a member of Baltimore’s Teen Campaign. While Baltimore was full of success and wonderful leaders, I wanted to create a successful organization in Howard County. I have always been active in my Jewish community and I wanted the Jewish teens in Howard County to have a non profit organization that they could benefit from. I brought the idea to my parents and they thought it was a good idea. Last summer my father and I had a meeting with Howard County’s Executive board member of Federation, Avrum Weiss. He absolutely loved the idea! With hard planning during the summer I had created Howard County’s Teen Campaign.

My board consisted of about eight members. We met once a month to talk about topics from tzduckah to different charities we could donate money to. Everything was going well when the idea of us putting on a family fundraiser was crushed. As a result of many Jewish holidays around the corner we could not find time to put on a successful fundraiser. One of my board members said that she had attended a memorial havdallah service and there was a photo banner to remember the boy that had died. When she had told the board that story we began brain storming of ideas that could work. Finally, with many ideas we created a “Happy 60th Birthday Israel” banner. We charged $1 per signature and $5 per message. Our proceeds went to the Koby Mandel foundation and Jewish Nation Fund to restore water and tree’s in Israel. We released our banner at the annual Purim carnival in Howard County, and then it grew to travel throughout the community. In late November, the board of Federation is going to bring our banner to Israel, for it to be marched in honor of Israel’s birthday.

In five years I will be 21 and hopefully graduating college. I hope to see my Jewish community stronger than ever. I hope that the first year of Howard County Teen Campaign inspires the teens of Howard County to remain active after their Bnai mitzvah. Many of the members of my board not only belong to Jewish clubs at their school, but they are active in their Bnai Brith Youth Organization chapters. Golda Meir did whatever she felt was right for the Jewish community, whether it was successful or not, she never let the Jewish people down. In my generation now, it is our job, and it should be our passion to remain Jewish. It should be our job and passion to do anything to help our fellow Jews. In five years my vision I hope to see is Jewish teens fighting for board positions in their chapter, fighting over what Jewish organization to donate money to, fighting to remember their Jewish identity.

With out any of this being possible I would like to thank Baltimore’s Teen Campaign. You all inspired me to create this successful organization for my Jewish community. I also would like to thank Avrum Weiss because without him Teen Campaign would not exist. And of course, I would like to thank my parents and my brother Lyle. My family has been not only supportive, but they have been a huge help. My dad was an advisor to my board and my mother chimed in whenever she had advice or a good idea. My brother was one of my board members as well and helped me get numerous signatures. Lastly, I would like to thank my board, who never gave up even when we had no ideas. Each and every one of you contributed in various ways and I could not be more thankful to have such an astounding group of teens to work with. I would also like to thank our MC for the day, Mark Shiffer and his brother David for being here today. They are active members of my board who were just amazing. And of course I would like to thank my dear friend and fellow honoree Steffi Sass. While she was a senior, president of our chapter, and many other tasks, she came to many meetings and supported me and this organization. Thank you.