Matzo Ball Queen planning unusual fundraiser

Fundraising for charity is an important aspect of the annual Matzo Ball, sponsored by the Nordaunian AZA chapter. Yet when 15-year-old Meryl Engle became the Matzo Ball Queen at the 75^th dance this spring, she didn’t stop there.

Rather, Meryl is using her year of “royalty” to do even more good — this time for brain-cancer research.

“When I won the Matzo Ball Queen, I decided that I wanted to still be active in fundraising for the next year,” Meryl explained. “I talked to my Uncle Jimmy about it, and he thought of this project he’d been wanting to do for years but hadn’t found the time to do. He said that since I wanted to be involved in a charity for the upcoming year, I could help out with his idea.”

Meryl’s “Uncle Jimmy” is James Engle of James Engle Custom Homes, developer of such subdivisions as Olathe’s Prairie Brook and Prairie Point and Overland Park’s Wilshire Farms.

“He asked me to help him this summer … to build a house, and all the proceeds from the sale will go to charity, and he let me choose the charity,” Meryl said. “I chose Head for the Cure, which funds brain-cancer research.

“I have friends from school, and they support Head for the Cure in memory of their parents,” she said. “I also have another friend whose mom has brain cancer, and cancer has touched our family. Plus, cancer research always needs money.”

The more, the merrier

James Engle’s plan had a further twist, and that was that the home would be built to the latest “green” specifications in order to minimize energy usage and environmental impact.

James Engle explained that, in order to complete his plan, “you’ve got to contact hundreds of vendors to gauge their interest, so she (Meryl) has written letters and answered phone calls to get their interest and participation.”

The more goods and services the vendors donate, James Engle said, the more he will be able to donate to charity from the sale proceeds.

Homes in Prairie Brook, where the Head for the Cure house is being built, are advertised as costing $300,000 to over $500,000.

“Even if nobody donates any materials, we would hope to make a $30,000 donation,” James Engle said.

But with the number of donations pledged to the effort thus far, Meryl Engle said, their current goal is to raise $75,000 for Head for the Cure.

“All my subcontractors were more than eager to get involved,” James Engle said. “In fact, they are fighting over … who gives the most money.”

James Engle said construction on the home was to begin this week and should be completed by February.

“Then we need to sell it,” James Engle said. “But I’m confident it will sell. It’s our best-selling plan in our best-selling community.”

If all goes well, he said, the Engles will present their donation to charity at the 76^th annual Matzo Ball in April 2011.

Head for the Cure 5K run/walk set Aug. 29

The largest recurring fundraiser for Head for the Cure, its eighth annual 5-kilometer run and walk, is set for Sunday, Aug. 29, with the start/finish line at Corporate Woods Building 40, near College Boulevard and Antioch Road.

The walk begins at 8 a.m., with the awards ceremony at 9:30 a.m.

With this year’s run, the Head for the Cure Foundation expects to reach and surpass the $1 million mark in funds generated to fight brain cancer.

Registration is $25 a person, or $10 a child for the kids’ 50-yard fun run. Register or find more information at www.headforthecure.org.

The Head for the Cure Foundation was established to celebrate the life of Chris Anthony, who suffered from a brain tumor and died in 2003 at age 37. Proceeds benefit the Chris Anthony Brain Tumor Research Fund at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The fund strongly supports the Brain Tumor Trials Collaborative, operating at M.D. Anderson and other leading medical centers.

Rabbi offers Kabbalah Life Coaching

After a 10-year sojourn in South Africa, Rabbi Michoel Zev Wineberg is back in town and offering individualized study of the Jewish mystical tradition that he calls Kabbalah Life Coaching.

The son of the local Chabad House founders Rabbi Sholom and Bluma Wineberg, Rabbi  Zev Wineberg attended Lubavitcher yeshivot before moving to South Africa in 1999. For a decade, he worked for casino mogul Sol Kirschner at his Beacon Island Resort in Plettenberg Bay, leading Shabbat services at the hotel and otherwise maintaining a sense of Jewish community in the tourist town.

“We would get 300 people for a typical Friday-night service; 1,000 in the high season,” Rabbi Wineberg recalled. “In South Africa, all the Jews come to synagogue.”

While in South Africa, Rabbi Wineberg married a native, Gabi, and began offering the sort of counseling that he now calls Kabbalah Life Coaching. He decided to continue offering the sessions after he and his wife moved to his hometown last year.

Rabbi Wineberg said he has already offered the course to about 10 people here.

“The goal is to try to help people get out of the state of fear and into a state of love,” he said. “Unless we get rid of anxiety, we are basically  neurotic; we’re lugging around a backpack full of worries.”

Two hundred years ago, Reb Nachman of Breslov put it this way: “The world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to fear at all.”

Rabbi Wineberg agrees, but he is quick to point out that he is not practicing psychotherapy. Rather, he said, he is trying to turn concepts from hundreds of years of Jewish mysticism into chunks that are understandable and useful to modern, maybe not-so-learned Jews.

“It all comes from Jewish mysticism,” Rabbi Wineberg said. “I have invented nothing. We have sort of packaged it. …

“It’s not about counseling, but more about your general disposition. You can deal with anxiety by learning to be positive and to cherish other people. … You can take someone who is OK and give them the tools to be great. Kabbalah is tools for life. That’s what it is.”

Rabbi Wineberg said that, contrary to what you may have heard, there is nothing improper, from the standpoint of Jewish tradition, about teaching Kabbalistic concepts to less-than-learned Jews.

“It’s part and parcel of Torah,” he said. “It’s not like some mystic made this up sometime. It’s called the soul of the Torah. The body of the Torah is the laws, and the soul is the meaning behind the laws.”

For more information, visit Rabbi Wineberg’s website, kinformation.org, where there are a variety of booklets, articles and audio lectures on Kabbalistic topics to download. Or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and sign up to receive his Kabbalah thought for the day.

To schedule a meeting with the rabbi for a session of Kabbalah Life Coaching, contact him at (913) 486-9688 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .