Our Hometown Hillel

by Amy Schwartz Kimlat

Central Florida Hillel has grown into one of the nation’s finest, and the organization now has a prestigious award to prove it .

When Danielle McKinstry found out that Central Florida Hillel (CFH) was receiving a major award for its deep engagement with students, she was surprised. As the assistant director of the organization that supports Jewish campus life at the University of Central Florida and its neighboring colleges, Danielle knew that her Hillel was growing in its relationships with students. She just hadn’t realized that the Orlando-based Hillel was ranked so highly in the nation for the strength of its student connections.

In January, Hillel International honored CFH, and four other Hillels, in front of more than 1,000 field professionals for having the Greatest Growth in Depth. In organizational speak, depth is defined as a student participating with Hillel, whether it be a conversation over coffee, attending an event, or traveling to a conference, at least six times in a school year.

“We weren’t expecting to win this award – it’s not something we applied for,” Danielle explains.

Instead, the award was granted based on data submitted by the hundreds of Hillel affiliates.

CFH’s leadership worked hard for this achievement, which was earned after conducting more than 100 interviews with students on campus to better understand what they’re seeking from their collegiate experience.

“They’re stressed out and want to do intentional programming with people they enjoy,” Danielle says of her team’s findings. “They’re looking for valuable opportunities – whether it be through travel or for their career – to stand out as an individual.”

This research has informed the way CFH staff and student leaders create programs, which range from barbecues and Shabbat lunches to Birthright Israel trips, Israel advocacy conferences, and Jewish learning meet-ups.

That our community’s homegrown Hillel has evolved so quickly is a remarkable testament to the staff members, community volunteers, committed donors, and student leaders who have invested so much time and money into growing Jewish campus life since CFH was founded 20 years ago.

Hillel History 101

In 2000, several local leaders volunteered to establish CFH to serve the growing Jewish population at UCF and Rollins College. They chose a young professional named Wendi Harris to serve as the organization’s first executive director. Two decades later, she remains a leader in the community as president of The Rosen JCC’s board of directors.

CFH began with a single desk on campus and one staff person, increasing in size over a few years to five full-time employees and offices that took up a four-bedroom student housing apartment, and soon after, a vacated bank. But by the end of CFH’s first decade, its operation took a major hit in staff and facility size as the Great Recession took hold.

When the economy recovered, there was not just rebuilding to do – there was building to do. Local Jewish philanthropists, lay leaders (led by then-board chair Hank Katzen), and the university partnered to build an innovative new home for Hillel. In 2013, NorthView was born. The 600,000-square-foot facility houses a 600-bed residence hall that serves as a partial funding vehicle for CFH’s operations, which take up 20,000 square feet of the new facility’s space. Local philanthropist and Hillel champion Alan Ginsburg, along with his family, officially dedicated the space as the Jeffrey & Diane Ginsburg Center for Jewish Student Life, in memory of Alan’s son Jeffrey, a founding CFH board member, and Jeffrey’s wife Diane, who also served on the board.

The same year the facility opened, Hillel brought on Aaron Weil, who had most recently led the Hillel in Pittsburgh for a decade, to helm the burgeoning organization. Since then, CFH has grown from a start-up with a mere $276,000 budget serving a handful of students at the smallest Hillel in the state, to a $1.3-million organization serving thousands of students in what is now the largest Hillel in Florida.

In addition, CFH has spun off successful Hillel operations at Rollins College and Stetson University and is now partnering with YEHUDI, a Florida-based organization that provides Jewish learning opportunities. CFH is annually ranked in the top 10 of all Hillels in America as a Best Place to Work. From the AIPAC Policy Conference to the JNF Conference, CFH is also in the top five of student delegations at important national conferences every year.

The numbers are staggering – with its estimated 6,000 Jewish students, UCF is on course to surpass the University of Florida as the largest Jewish population on campus in the country.

All of these accomplishments considered, it should be no surprise that CFH won an award for its growth in student engagement.

“We are still struggling to keep up with the demand,” Aaron says, pointing out that in 2013 the largest Jewish high school in Florida sent no students from its graduating class to UCF, but by 2019, the university had become the Jewish graduates’ top choice. “This growth has strained our financial resources to reach these burgeoning numbers, but as a student-led and community-supported institution, we are Orlando’s Hometown Hillel.”

With thousands of Jewish young adults arriving on Orlando’s doorstep every year, Aaron wants the community to know that there are so many opportunities to help Hillel meet its needs, so that one day, he says, “The students call Orlando home.”