STAR SPANGLED SPECTACULAR UP AHEAD — Overland Park Rotary is continuing Overland Park’s July 4th fireworks tradition with its 24th annual Star Spangled Spectacular event in Corporate Woods. Each year, the event raises funds for deserving local charities in the Kansas City area. This year, Sheffield Place, Make-A-Wish Missouri and the Rotary Youth Leadership Institute will be receiving donations from the 2015 event.
As has been the custom the past several years, several members of the Jewish community are on the planning committee, chair by Congregation Beth Shalom member Chuck Gasser. Craig Novorr serves at the organization’s president.
The Star Spangled Spectacular is an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration for all ages, and includes free live concerts, food, beverages and fun for kids of all ages including four different inflatable game stations. {mprestriction ids="1,3"}The event takes place on July 4 at Corporate Woods (behind Bldg. 40) in Overland Park. Many local businesses and individuals contribute to the event. All the details and schedule are at www.starspangledspectacular.org.
CALENDAR ITEMS SOUGHT —The Jewish Chronicle is working on the annual Rosh Hashanah publication for 2014-2015 and we need your help.
Please send us your calendar of special events for the upcoming year (September 2014 through September 2015) so we can add them to our calendar. We don’t mean weekly or monthly events like study groups, but events that may occur once a year or a special event being planned now for the upcoming year.
In order for these events to be considered for placement in the calendar, please send them to us no later than July 23. These can be sent to or .
If you have any questions, call Barbara Bayer, editor, at 913-951-8425.
BLESSED MEMORY LAUNCHES — Bringing a longtime Jewish tradition into the 21st century, United Synagogue announces the launch of Blessed Memory, a virtual memorial board giving individuals and congregations an opportunity to memorialize loved ones in an easy, always accessible way. The website will also be displayed at USCJ’s Fuchsberg Center in the heart of Jerusalem.
Blessed Memory is for anyone who wants to memorialize a loved one. Those who may find it especially helpful are individuals who don’t belong to a synagogue or live far from the synagogue where their loved ones are honored with a traditional memorial plaque. The site can also assist congregations themselves by uploading their entire yahrzeit lists directly into the system, ensuring that records remain accessible regardless of congregational changes or moves. Blessed Memory will also send out yahrzeit reminders, saving synagogue staff or volunteers’ time and postage.
The Blessed Memory project is underwritten by Mildred Werber in order to honor the members of her family and all the others who were slaughtered during the Holocaust and have no permanent memorial or marked graves. To further perpetuate Jewish tradition and further Jewish education in their memory, funds raised through Blessed Memory are earmarked to support the Conservative Yeshiva and the Fuchsberg Center.
Once information is uploaded to the site, pages are ripe for customization, with stories, photos, or congregational histories. Individuals can also, for a nominal fee, sign up for yahrzeit reminders from the site without purchasing a tribute plaque.
“As our world transitions toward ‘the cloud,’ we are faced with the question of how we preserve memory without relying on physical structures,” said Barry Mael, USCJ’s director of kehilla operations and finance, and the staff member who spearheaded the project. “Blessed Memory provides a space to remember that can exist anywhere.”
Visit the Blessed Memory website at www.blessedmemory.org.{/mprestriction}
