My relationship with Ramah Darom began before I ever set foot on its campus.
Thirty-two years ago, a group of early supporters, including my parents, gathered at my childhood synagogue in Charlotte to discuss a bold idea: bringing a Ramah camp to the South. My father, Alan, was eager to help turn that vision into reality and went on to serve on Ramah Darom’s founding Board of Directors.
A few years later, in 1997, I became one of Ramah Darom’s first campers. Summer after summer, I returned as a camper and later as a counselor, building lifelong friendships and having some of the most formative Jewish experiences of my life. Camp shaped my understanding of community, leadership, and what it means to take an active role in Jewish life.
Today, I have the privilege of watching that experience continue through my daughters, Nina and Margot. Whether they’re spending the summer at camp or joining us for year-round retreats, they’re building friendships and traditions of their own on the same campus that meant so much to me growing up.
Over time, Ramah Darom has become more than a place where our children go to camp. It has become a place where our whole family gathers. Some of my favorite moments now are spent at Winter Break Family Camp and other programs with my husband, our children, my parents, and my brother’s family.
This year, I was honored to join Ramah Darom’s Board of Directors as the organization’s first alum to also be a second-generation board member. Serving in this role feels like a natural extension of the values I first learned at camp—and an opportunity to give back to a community that has given so much to my family.
When my parents and the other early supporters gathered in Charlotte all those years ago, they hoped to create something that would enrich Jewish life in the Southeast for generations to come. Today, three generations of my family have found a home at Ramah Darom.
What began as a dream has become part of our family’s story – and, for so many Jewish families across the Southeast, part of theirs, too.