“We want to make things better for everybody … not just the Jewish community.”
It’s been a long 18 months for Ken Sigman, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City’s chairman of the board, and others who manage or work at The J. It all began the day before Passover, April 13, 2014, when two people — William Corporon and his grandson Reat Underwood — were killed outside of the Jewish Community Campus. They were on their way inside the building so Reat could audition for KC SuperStar, the “American Idol” type singing competition for teens that is The J’s largest fundraiser. After speeding away from the Campus, Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. (also known as Frazier Glenn Miller) drove to Village Shalom where he killed Terri LaManno in the parking lot of the nursing home where LaManno’s mother lived.
Following last week’s guilty verdict, Sigman said that while The J continues to mourn the lives lost on that tragic day, the organization is doing well. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}The J also released this statement:
“Our community was presented with, hopefully, a once in a lifetime set of circumstances last year. Three innocent lives were lost due to hate. The J, along with individuals, agencies, law enforcement and community partners, have worked on a path of education and enlightenment to honor the victims of that day while renewing and enhancing our commitment of service to the greater Kansas City community.
“We as a community are doing very well. The Jewish Community Center — The J — is committed to making something good out of the bad event that took place. “While the victims and survivors of the shooting are always in our hearts and minds, life at The J has returned to normal. Attendance is up and new memberships are coming in at a steady rate. We just wrapped up KC SuperStar, our largest fundraising event of the year, generating more than $1 million dollars for our community projects and scholarships, something we’re proud to host as a positive, life-affirming message for young talent, The J and the community.”
In the last few months The J has put a new management team in place, officially hiring Jim Sluyter as its president and CEO on Aug. 27, and initiated a new marketing campaign aimed at reaching the entire Kansas City community, not simply the Jewish Community. Every communication from The J, which was adopted as its preferred name within the past year, now comes with this tag:
“Established more than 100 years ago, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, ‘The J,’ provides a warm welcome to families of all backgrounds. The J’s all-in-one hub for health, learning and well-being elevates the lives of the community and its members with programs of excellence in fitness, sports, theatre, cultural arts, senior adult programming and youth services including summer camps and child development. Everyone can ‘live up’ at The J, located in Overland Park, Kansas, and at thejkc.org.”
Following the tragedy, Sigman said The J, along with others at the Jewish Community Campus, worked hard to make sure people felt secure there.
“We’ve created a safe environment and not only at the physical premises. People feel comfortable to express themselves here,” Sigman said.
Immediately after the incident, Sluyter said The J received an abundance of support from all across the nation, including letters from children, adults and organizations — from Jewish people and non-Jewish people — as well as unsolicited donations.
“It was really overwhelming to see the outpouring of love and support for the Jewish Community Center,” Sluyter said.
Now The J is paying that kindness forward.
“We feel it’s our duty and it’s important to us to also show that same kind of love and support to others. So when the church shooting happened recently, our entire board signed a letter of support for that church and we sent a donation to them to show them the kind of love of support that was shown us in our tragedy,” Sluyter explained.
As Sigman pointed out, whenever an organization has a setback or major challenge, what defines it is not what happened, but how the organization learned from the experience and moved forward. He said one of the things this experience has taught The J is that while one of the most important things to the Jewish people is tikkun olam — repairing the world — you can’t just repair the Jewish world, you need to work toward saving the world as a whole.
“After 100 years we recognized that The J serves the entire community, we don’t just serve the Jewish community,” he said. “Since the tragedy we’ve created an opportunity to even be more involved in the community. We’ve created partnerships with the families who were impacted by this tragedy, not only to follow their mission of faith wins, but also to support the family.”
For example, Sigman said the most successful SuperStar fundraiser ever was held last month. While the majority of its funds go to support scholarships and programming at The J, three other programs received significant donations — Children’s Mercy Hospital’s Big Slick, Royals General Manager Dayton Moore’s C You in the Major Leagues foundation and the Reat Griffin Underwood Rising Stars Fund.
The Reat Griffin Underwood Rising Stars Fund at the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation is designated to fund the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City’s Reat Griffin Underwood Rising Star Program by supporting Jewish Community Center education, theater and training programs that help youth 21-years-old and younger explore their dreams and goals in the performing arts, and by providing coaching for contestants for KC SuperStar.
Moore was recently chosen as SuperStar’s 2015 honoree and he was chosen in part due to The J’s renewed mission to treat everyone fairly and with kindness.
“We honored him not because the Royals are winning, but because of the type of culture of joy and fun and trusting people he has created. That’s the type of organization we strive to continue to develop,” Sigman said. “We’re taking this opportunity to focus more on treating people with dignity and respect. That’s not any small goal … but it’s really exciting. When you act this way you feel like you can achieve so much more. You feel like you can overcome so many problems.”
Sluyter said The J did experience a slight dip in membership following the April 2014 tragedy, but “frankly we don’t even know if it was tied to the tragedy.”
While declining to disclose its membership figures, Sluyter said the dip in membership trend has reversed “in a significant way and membership is up.”
The J continues to offer the same variety of programs it did prior to the tragedy.
“Our offerings here are so diverse and reasons why people are members vary quite a lot, which certainly helps us. Some people are members because they love our youth programs. Some are members because they use our fitness center or are members because they use our sports and recs program or they like the White Theatre and Heritage Center. So the diversity in why belonging to the Jewish Community is very important and has been a contributing factor to our numbers increasing,” Sluyter explained.
Last year The J was a co-sponsor of the Peace Walk held on the one-year anniversary of the tragedy. The Peace Walk was just one of many events that made up SevenDays, Make a Ripple Change the World, which is seven days of events aimed at “outshining and overcoming senseless acts of hate.” Sluyter said this year The J is looking at ways of incorporating more SevenDays themes into its programming during that week — possibly in its Child Development Center and in afterschool programs.
Sigman reiterated that there are so many ways for people to be involved with The J and to stay connected with the various parts of the community and to improve themselves.
“This is a place where people can be their very best selves.”{/mprestriction}