From Summer Camp to CEO

By Lucy M. Pritchett

Sara Klein Wagner discovered her calling after going to army camp for the start fourth dimension at historic menstruation 8. Photos yesteryear Patti Hartog


Perhaps you lot bring fond memories of attention summertime army camp when you lot were younger. It was your start fourth dimension away from home, together with you lot learned to swim together with weave lanyards. You sang songs simply about the campfire together with maneuvered a canoe. You made novel friends together with whispered into the black inwards your cabin.

Or, perhaps, every bit did Sara Klein Wagner, you lot constitute a career.


       

Sara is the novel president together with CEO of Jewish Community of Louisville. But, she didn’t simply locomote out a cabin inwards the woods to transcend a CEO. Based on her experiences of many summers attention Camp Livingston almost Vevay, Indiana, she longed to live a army camp director. “I loved beingness a camper, together with afterwards every bit a counselor I saw the ship on you lot could bring on kids,” she says. “I saw kids who for the start fourth dimension had to brand decisions on their ain together with were becoming to a greater extent than independent. I loved working amongst them.”



She attended army camp for the start fourth dimension when she was 8. “I had an older blood brother but no sisters. For three-and-a-half weeks every summer, I shared a cabin amongst 8 to 10 other girls. Besides the swimming, horseback riding, together with canoeing, I was learning how to alive amongst others. I was trying things that I mightiness non bring tried at habitation together with had communal support. I developed leadership skills. I trained every bit a novel counselor together with went from beingness a camper to counseling campers.”

Sara grew upward inwards Louisville’s Jewish community. She graduated from Atherton High School together with attended the University of Wisconsin where she majored inwards sociology. During the summers betwixt college semesters, she was dorsum at the army camp working every bit a counselor. “The army camp manager asked me what I was planning to create after college,” she says. “I told her that I wanted to operate amongst kids together with teens inwards the Jewish community. She suggested that I await into Brandeis University’s two-year graduate computer program inwards Jewish communal services. I didn’t fifty-fifty know such a affair existed.”



That’s sometimes simply the means it is amongst a Turning Point.

The program, Sara says, prepares students for leadership positions inwards a multifariousness of settings, including federations, synagogues, community centers, Hillel foundations, schools, together with other communal organizations.

After graduation from Brandeis, Sara worked for the Jewish Community Center inwards Boston. She was habitation inwards Louisville visiting on vacation together with discovered at that topographic point was a seat opened upward every bit community relations manager for the Jewish Community Federation. “By chance, I happened to bring my résumé amongst me,” she says. “I applied for together with got the job. I every bit good served every bit the drive together with fundraising director, worked amongst volunteers to start novel programs, together with eventually became the associate manager of the Jewish Community Federation.”

Louisville’s Jewish Community Center, which simply celebrated its 125th year, together with JCF merged inwards 2009 to cast Jewish Community of Louisville. For 4 years earlier taking on her novel role, Sara served every bit senior vice president together with COO of the newly formed organization.

In June 2015, she became president together with CEO of JCL. Her journeying from summertime army camp to Wisconsin to Boston together with live a provide to her hometown had come upward total circle amongst opportunities to aid others. “In my career here, I bring ofttimes worked amongst other religious belief groups. By working amongst the Jewish community, I ended upward working amongst the Louisville community.”



Now there’s a vocal to sing simply about the campfire.

Looking for a summertime army camp that volition brand a divergence inwards your child’s life? Our Today’s Family periodical has a list of camps that mightiness simply post your kid on a Turning Point.
Sumber http://www.todayswomannow.com/
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