A Match Made in Helping

By Emily Raij

Being called a Jewish power couple induces some giggling from Sharon and Aaron Weil, but the label seems fitting for two people who have chosen to be partners in life and in Jewish community-building here in Central Florida.

Sharon is the executive director of nonprofit operations for the Kinneret Council on Aging, which sees to the well-being of seniors who live in downtown Orlando’s Kinneret Apartments. Aaron is the executive director and CEO of Central Florida Hillel, serving Jewish college students throughout Central Florida. They met during a gathering at Sharon’s apartment while she was a junior at the University of Maryland and Aaron was working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill.

“Aaron says he knew from the moment he met me that we would get married,” remembers Sharon, “because while everyone else fell asleep around us, we stayed up and talked until 3:00 a.m. and the ‘Wedding March’ played on the radio!”

This month, the Weils celebrate 29 years of marriage, which have blessed them with three children and taken them to Israel, Pittsburgh, and Orlando.

“We came here seven years ago without any knowledge of the history of the community, so we were able to come in with new ideas,” says Aaron. “Orlando’s been very receptive to that. Our reason for being in Orlando is that we came from Pittsburgh, which is the gold standard for a strong Jewish community, and we wanted to build the kind of Jewish community that people like us would want to come to. We’ve taken that passion for community and that joy of working together as a community to Orlando.”

The Orlando Jewish community has reaped the rewards. And perhaps now more than ever, the community needs that joy and passion the Weils are known for in order to come together. Although Sharon and Aaron work with very different age groups, their organizations – like many – are facing a similar challenge to maintain engagement among the populations they serve during this time of extreme isolation and social distancing.

Kindness vs. COVID

In March, efforts to slow the spread of COVID-19 cleared the campuses of UCF and Rollins College, which are served by Central Florida Hillel. The lockdown sent students home and away from friends and college life. At the same time, the high-risk population of seniors living at the Kinneret Apartments were almost completely cut off from the outside world and certainly any outside visitors.

The Weils began brainstorming – separately, at first – from their home in Winter Park.

“I was sitting at my desk trying to figure out what to do with my residents to engage them, and Aaron was sitting on the sofa talking with his staff about how to engage his students,” says Sharon. “I was concerned about my residents and that no one was calling them. Aaron said, ‘Wait a second! I could have my college students call your residents!’”

The couple’s collaboration was set, and Aaron even had the perfect name: Hillel Helps. 

Liz Kalef, Central Florida Hillel’s director of community relations, got to work with her student-life team, procuring a list of volunteers. Sharon provided a list of Kinneret residents who wanted outside interaction, as well as a script students could use to keep conversation flowing during phone calls. Seniors were paired up with students, who were thrilled to provide a friendly voice or even pen a personal letter.

Sharon notes that several students had already been to Kinneret events before the current health crisis to lead Shabbat services and Passover seders or to shake the lulav and etrog for Sukkot in a pop-up sukkah with residents.

“Wherever we can find the opportunities to engage the Jewish residents with the Hillel students, we do that,” says Sharon. 

Those intergenerational opportunities not only join senior residents with young students, they bring together the oldest Jewish institution in the area with one of the youngest. 

Kinneret celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, and Central Florida Hillel will celebrate its 20th next year.

Liz has seen the Jewish value of service really resonate with Hillel students who recognize the importance of helping others who may be going through a hard time.

“Not everyone is comfortable picking up a phone and calling a senior out of the blue, but a lot of our kids are close with their grandparents,” says Liz. “It’s a little out of their comfort zone, which I think is healthy, but they’re pushing themselves, and they want to do it.”

The Caring Continues

Spring break and college finals slowed things down for a bit, but Hillel Helps now has nearly 20 student volunteers plus about a dozen members of the AEPi Jewish fraternity who are helping in other ways. Phase two of the program will see college students tutor Jewish Academy of Orlando pupils. Another project in the works tasks Hillel volunteers with creating anti-bullying videos aimed at middle- and high-school students for the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida.

“The whole concept, from our point of view for Hillel, was very much an evolutionary process,” says Aaron. “Hillel Helps is an opportunity to empower our students. This is the first crisis for this generation. They really were unsure to even imagine for themselves how to move from victim to empowerment. And so we saw Hillel Helps as a way to empower our students to move from being victims to helping others.”

It almost feels like Central Florida Hillel has been preparing for this moment. It is one of 15 Hillels in the U.S. and Canada training in the Organizational Design Lab model, which encourages students to take on leadership roles.

“We are now becoming a student-led organization that is parent- and community-supported rather than the reverse,” says Aaron. “We’ve been training in the model for the last two years, but 

I think COVID-19 really gives us an opportunity to try it in a meaningful way.”

Hillel Helps is living up to its name, but it’s also shining a light on the ways the Central Florida Jewish community can work together to grow the next generation of Jewish leaders.

“I think this is a generation that’s going to look broader than themselves,” Aaron says. “These students want to make a difference. They just need an opportunity. COVID-19 has presented us with an opportunity to use new tools because the game has changed. It would be foolhardy for us to try and reach students the same way we did before the pandemic. Hillel Helps is a different way of reaching our students and a different way of impacting the world.”

Similarly, the crisis has forced Sharon to try out new tools to support the well-being of Kinneret residents and foster a sense of community when people can’t actually meet. She created a Kinneret residents Facebook group so neighbors can send messages and inform each other about programs or partake in armchair travel together. Kinneret also worked with Volunteers for Community Impact, an organization that aims to lessen social isolation among seniors by giving them a chance to give back. Residents, many of whom sew, were supplied with materials to make masks for a local hospice, for example.

In addition to social interaction, food insecurity is another issue for Kinneret residents. The facility continues to operate its food pantry, which gives residents much-needed resources and provides Passover meals for seders. Sharon says the Israeli American Council has also donated challah, and the Pargh Foundation is providing hot meals for residents through the Toasted Food Truck (for more on that initiative, turn to page 9).

The Weils’ wheels always seem to be turning. They even came up with another Hillel Helps idea during their Zoom interview for this article: have students bake challahs for Kinneret residents once everyone returns to campus.

“I’m constantly looking for ways to show our residents that people care,” says Sharon. “It’s like a virtual hug – food is a very Jewish thing, and food is what gives you a hug.”

And if you’re wondering how you can help, Sharon is currently seeking donations of new or used iPads for Kinneret residents to provide more opportunities for interaction.

“If we can find donors who are willing to donate the technology, we can find the college students to partner with the residents to teach them,” says Aaron.

Sharon and Aaron have mastered the art of working together, both personally and professionally. Now they are excited to see Hillel Helps and Orlando grow, as well.

“Separate from COVID, it’s a real time of growth in the Orlando Jewish community,” Sharon says. “More and more agencies are now interested in working together. It’s beautiful to see.”