‘We were very poor. My mother was on food stamps, and there just wasn’t much money, but did the best they could.’

Oceanside

“My parents were very charitable people. My mother came from Poland when she was young; my father fled the Nazis from Austria. They were separated, but although I lived with my mother, my father was very present in my life.

“We were very poor. My mother was on food stamps, and there just wasn’t much money, but did the best they could. Yet my mother kept something called a tzedakah box, which are basically little metal boxes that you put coins into, to save for a charitable cause. My mother kept about 4 to 5 of these in the top drawer of our kitchen. I still have one of hers that I keep to remind me.

“There were these little yeshivas, little schools, and rabbis would come to the house every month or so and take the pennies that were in the boxes. We had so little, but my mother always put something in these boxes for them. It was so important to her. It always struck me that no matter how little we had, it showed me there were people who needed even more than we did. The way I am just comes from that.

“My background was in day camps. I started working in day camps at 19, just looking for a purpose in life back then while in college. That’s when I realized I had an ability to work with children, and I fell in love with doing that, and just kept doing this work.

“I attended a concert in 2005, and it also turned out the event benefitted a sleepaway camp that focuses on children with various degrees of life-impacting illness, including cancer. At the time, I was the CEO of the Friedberg Jewish Community Center in Oceanside, which I had been doing for 20 years. I also have a master’s [degree] in social work. I began wondering about what day camps existed for kids with cancer, and I found there was really nothing aside from a couple of small weeklong programs, nothing summerlong.

“The subject really got on my mind. I learned that the lack of such camps for children was due to the fact that immunocompromised kids can’t be in a regular camp setting, and many parents can’t afford to send a child to camp due to the cost of cancer treatment. These kids were basically stuck sitting at home. I thought, I wonder if there was something we could do about that?”

Sunrise was so compelling. I figured, if I were going to do one final job before retiring, this was it.

“We already had a property in Wheatley Heights that had room for a medical camp, so we explored the idea, talking to local hospitals. And by the summer of 2006, we had raised about $750K toward the construction of the camp.

“We then rebuilt the property to suit the necessary medical needs. And with the help of local officials and hospitals critical to securing what else we needed, by 2006 we opened what would be the first camp for children with cancer, and we also included their siblings.

“One of the things we learned was how affected kids were by their siblings being sick, including not being able to do anything that might introduce germs into their homes, how much attention they received, the emotions they felt because of this, or how a family’s economy was impacted by the costs of experimental treatments. We felt we should not only include siblings, but make it their camp as well.

“The camps are called the Sunrise Day Camps Association. We were once part of the JCC, but in 2014 we split off as we wanted to expand, so we became a separate nonprofit. We’re still part of the JCC movement and affiliated with JCC in Oceanside, but we’re an independent organization as of that year. That was the point when we really started to grow.

“For me, the decision was an easy one: After nearly 30 years as a JCC director, Sunrise was so compelling. I figured if I were going to do one final job before retiring, this was it.

“After our first camp on Long Island, we opened our second one in Israel. One of the things we insisted when we opened the camp in Israel was that all children would be welcome. Whether they were Muslim, Jewish, Arab, Christian, Palestinian, it didn’t matter — the cancer was the key issue. It showed us that when you have a shared problem, a shared goal, you put your differences aside. With the camp we’re opening in Chicago this year, that’ll be eight camps in the U.S., with the original still going in Wheatley Heights.”

There’s a world full of issues, and some just don’t get addressed. If there’s an opportunity to help, to be a part of something like this, you just take it. You just do it.

“The camps are free for the children; everything is free. We have a lot of one-on-one counselors, so that there’s more attention that can be paid to the kids. Some children require a one-to-one counselor who’s assigned to them, perhaps due to a cancer that limits their mobility, or they have brain cancer, bone cancer or perhaps they just haven’t socialized with children and are inexperienced with others and need to be guided through their first experiences with other children.

“We didn’t just want to build a day camp for children with cancer. We wanted to build the best camp we could build, to give these kids the greatest summer ever and as normal a summer as possible with as many smiles as we can fit into the day.

“I didn’t grow up knowing any children with cancer. I never met a child with cancer until I started work on the camp. It wasn’t about that. I really feel that people can’t just contribute to those issues that affect us personally.

“There’s a world full of issues, and some just don’t get addressed. If there’s an opportunity to help, to be a part of something like this, you just take it. You just do it. This was something that came to my attention. Then it became something I brought to other people’s attention, looking at the landscape and seeing we had an opportunity to do something, to make some kids’ lives better, so why not just do it? It’s the subtle things in life that inspire you more than the things that people throw at you and tell you that you have to do.

“I first learned by watching my mom — and she was always a huge influence for me — what she did for others. It’s clearly something that stays with me, as when our grandchildren were born. I gave each a tzedakah box. My wife and I also give a great deal to charity; it’s what we do. In the end, the choices that I made were influenced by understanding what was most important, and I believe that the best way to inspire people is to just go about your life and do it right. They’ll see. You don’t have to push it on them. What they should think and what they should do, they’ll see. That’s what I saw with my mom.”

‘I never thought it wouldn’t happen because acting was all I knew. I was so close I could taste it. Then, it happened!’

Oceanside

“When I was a kid in Oceanside, I had an inordinate amount of energy, and I wanted to be an actor. I never deviated from this goal. When ‘The Nanny’ came out, it became, ‘I want to be the Nanny!’ My career wouldn’t have happened without two things: My mom’s close friend being an agent for kids, and my having a willing and supportive mother. As a kid, I was lucky enough to be going on auditions all the time. We would schlep on the LIRR. I had a thick Long Island accent and had to get help getting rid of it. The first big job I got was on … ‘The Nanny!’ I was 12, and my mom and I flew to California. The Northridge earthquake hit a few hours after we arrived. Sony completely flooded, so we couldn’t shoot until the set was rebuilt a few weeks later. I had to come back and do it all over again.

“I was actually on the show twice playing two different characters: young Fran in a classroom, and three years later, Fran’s cousin. After one semester of college, it happened to be pilot season, so my agent called everyone who would listen, including Danny Jacobson, the showrunner of ‘Roseanne.’ She said, ‘I have a client you should write a show for, and if you don’t like her, you’ll never hear from me again.’ I sat down with him, and he shortly realized he wanted to give me a development deal with 20th Century Fox and create a new show. That show never happened. It was the first of many times I almost had it. I also had a deal with Nickelodeon. They were creating me a spin-off of ‘All That’ called ‘And Now This!’ It never went.

“I started doing stand-up when I was 14. One of my first bits was listing the Babylon train line in the announcer’s voice. At one point I bought a boom box and a karaoke CD and met a producer in the lobby of a Doubletree, where I did my shtick, including a song-and-dance number. I did anything to make this career happen! It all sort of worked because they were steps forward. I never thought it wouldn’t happen because acting was all I knew. I struggled so much on the way to where I am. I was constantly in meetings with people who said, ‘The right person is going to see you, and it’s going to happen to you.’ I was so close I could taste it. Then, it happened!”

It’s mind-expanding to be capable of a thing you never thought would be possible for you.

“When I tried out for ‘American Idol’ in 2008, I’d been acting for 20 years. I loved making music, and I’d gotten more serious about it when I’d moved to New York to do a show called ‘Jewtopia’ in 2003. I’m pretty much down to do anything creative. I auditioned for ‘Idol’ with 18,000 people in New York; they showed three auditions on TV, and I was one of them. Then, after Paula Abdul was on ‘The Tonight Show’ saying I was her favorite, I got eliminated immediately. Welcome to Hollywood! It was sort of a blessing that it didn’t happen. Even though it was devastating at the time, I don’t know that it would have been the most fruitful journey for me. I mostly did ‘Idol’ because I had been acting for so long and it wasn’t happening.

“After ‘Idol,’ I ended up being a musical comedian, touring colleges and doing commercials from 2010 to 2015. I didn’t have a lot going on when I got an audition to play Gilda Radner. I prepared for every single one of her characters, including costume changes. I brought a guitar, wrote a song, I brushed out my hair and practiced my voice. I was wildly prepared. I get chills remembering how, as I was leaving, the casting director opened the door and yelled to me down the hallway, ‘Jackie, don’t cut your hair!’

“Getting to play Gilda in ‘A Futile and Stupid Gesture’ was life-changing. It was a coveted role, and me, this no-name girl from Long Island who hadn’t worked in a while, got the part. The movie was an incredible experience that led to an audition for ‘GLOW.’ I read the script and was going to pass out because it was the funniest, deepest, most diverse, interesting, real, grounded, women-led, women-written thing. I tried out for every character on ‘GLOW’ before getting Melanie. I wasn’t an athlete, and we did all of our own stunts. We learned how to wrestle! That was me, body-slamming people. It was the most validating and empowering experience of my life. It’s mind-expanding to be capable of a thing you never thought would be possible for you. Our value in these situations is vaster than we ever could know. As a person who’d been acting for years, I was acutely aware of how rare of a situation I was in. To have the dream job was incredible.”

I’ve learned to be unreasonably tenacious in order to have a well-rounded career in which I get to do a lot of different things.

“My buddy Mike and I created ‘Do Re & Mi’ in 2014. I would have never known a cartoon takes seven years to make until I made one. He had an idea for a kid show with music, so we came up with a bunch of scripts. He also created an incredible amount of art, and my friend Dave helped write songs. Music and arts education are [historically] the first to go when schools are facing cuts. We wanted to make the show so all kids can have access to music education in one way or another. I was at Kristen Bell’s house and wanted to see if her daughter responded to the art and music. As I was showing it to her daughter, Kristen said, ‘I love this idea, let me know if you need any help.’ She came on as a producer and a voice. We started making the show in 2019, and it came out in 2021. Mike and I created it, Dave and I wrote all the music, and Kristen and I did voices and executive-produced. I wore a lot of hats, and it’s absolutely the direction in which I’d like my career to continue.

“When I got the opportunity to do ‘Best Leftovers Ever’ on Netflix, which was a cooking competition series, it put hosting at the top of my dream list. I love meeting and interacting with new people. A big part of hosting is improvising and thinking on your feet. We only did one season, unfortunately. Looking back, who knows what would have happened if I had not grown up on Long Island? My dad is a musician, and my mom is incredibly funny, so all of my good stuff came from my parents. My brothers are athletes, and my parents are both gym teachers, yet I somehow came out born in a leather jacket doing a dance number and have never stopped! I’ve learned that to be in my career, you must have perseverance and patience. I know I was more patient than I thought possible because I always had my eyes on the prize. I have an internal combustion engine to just perform and make art. I can’t not do it. If you want to succeed, you have to make stuff and put yourself out there. You have to have thick skin and want to keep coming back for more in the face of unimaginable rejection. I’ve learned to be unreasonably tenacious in order to have a well-rounded career in which I get to do a lot of different things.”

Interviewed by Iris Wiener

‘It’s not really about getting business. It’s more about finding people who can support you throughout your career.’

Oceanside

“I started my own digital marketing agency in Oceanside back in 2013. Social media, web design, SEO were all very new things to me at the time. I was 23 when I started the company. I was super young and I tried networking, but a lot of people didn’t take me seriously.

“I would go to networking events, but I found a lot of the people had their own friends. Whether it was because they just didn’t understand what I did for a living, or because I was young, they just weren’t paying attention.

“I found a group of younger professionals who were starting law firms, real estate agencies and all different businesses. We were all from the same generation and dealing with the challenges of opening a business. That’s why we were able to come together and collaborate to help each other because we were all in the same boat.

I get to hire local people and have them help local business owners.

“It was not just that we did business with each other, but we actually became friends. It was nice to hang out with people who understood that drive, hustle and passion. When that group was dissolving, I didn’t want to lose that connection and invited people to form our own group.

“I started the Unicorn Network in 2016 as a group of millennial entrepreneurs. Currently, we have about 600 members on Long Island and another chapter in Manhattan. Of course, now our lives have shifted. When we were in our 20s, we were starting businesses, and now we’re starting families and getting married. We still talk with each other and connect with people who can relate, understand and support each other professionally.

“COVID caused a slew of new challenges, making it difficult to meet people, plan events and raise money for charities. Now there are even more challenges. Some of us don’t need to network. Our businesses have already taken off, and people are prioritizing other things.

“It’s not really about getting business. It’s more about finding people who can support you throughout your career. I love what I do. I get to hire local people and have them help local business owners. I want to keep the momentum going. I want to keep inspiring people and make sure that any professional challenges or questions someone has about business, that they have a place to receive help.”

Interviewed by Dan Offner