Hebrew Academy alumni plan Chicago fundraiser

A group of Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy alumni heard about the year-end fundraising challenge facing the 43-year-old day school and vowed to do something to help.

To that end, they are hosting a get-together Dec. 15 in Chicago to celebrate Chanukah, see old friends and help the Academy achieve its goal.

The school needs to collect $1 million by Dec. 31 in order to trigger two separate $1 million matching donations — one each by the Jewish Heritage Foundation and Sosland Foundation.

“This is the first time we have ever had an alumni gathering outside of the city, so I am excited about that,” said HBHA Head of School Howard Haas. “I am flying up there … and really looking forward to talking to them. It might be their money that brings us to where we need to be. We need a few people to come through, but I am feeling good about it.”

Haas said a successful campaign would inject $3 million into the Academy’s endowment, making it the largest ever. The money will be used for operations and scholarships, he said.

Party for a purpose
“When some of us were home in October for a wedding, we heard about the fundraising campaign,” said Mike Berenbom, the 28-year-old son of Dr. Loren and Merilyn Berenbom, who now lives in Chicago and works as an analyst at a commercial-property firm. “On the plane back to Chicago, we decided to get everybody together over Chanukah and raise some money and inform them of what’s going on with the school.”

Berenbom is joined in staging the Dec. 15 event by fellow Chicagoans and HBHA alums Jennifer Nussbaum Elyashar (’00) and Dina Horwitz (’01). It will be held at the apartment building that is home to former Kansas Citians Jeremy and Ashley Alpert.

“I think all of us alumni of my generation have fond memories of HBHA, and we are thankful for the education we received and the friends we took with us,” Berenbom said. “We hope to get 30 people. We’ve invited alumni, plus other students who attended but didn’t graduate from high school there … The plan is not to have a formal program, but to get together and say a few words. Then Howard Haas … will tell us about the current fundraising campaign.

“We think it’s important, and we would like to do our part.”

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