Phil Friday: 500 Lights

To me, true community is built little by little, person to person, so that community is built for the community, by the community.

Recently, the Jewish Federation of Greater Raleigh held our third annual Shine the Light Fundraiser to harness the power of our community, and to raise funds to lift up and support our community in many different ways.

On the day of Shine the Light, I was so excited to see our community reach its most ambitious goal yet–$400,000 in just 24 hours. I knew that if we could reach this goal, that would mean we could connect more people through our engagement programming, care for more people through our social services, and increase our community impact by building relationships across Greater Raleigh.

On June 5 with just minutes to spare, our community reached our goal, and we were so thankful to see such an outpouring of support. More than 500 donors raised $425,343 in one day, surpassing our goal by more than $25,000!

This success was not the result of luck. It was the result of the passions of our community and hard work of our board members, volunteer leaders, professional staff, and generous matchers. So many people had a hand in this achievement for our community. We could not have done it without everyone who called, texted, gave and matched.

On the staff side, we were especially thankful to our staff team leads, Tracy Jacobsen and Stefanie Shapiro, who kept us all inspired and supported throughout the day (and who graciously offered to join me in pies to the face if we reached our goal).

On behalf of everyone at Jewish Federation, we are so grateful for your participation and support.

Reaching new people is so important for helping us build community. Each additional person that we connect with makes our community infinitely more special.

Shabbat Shalom,

Phil