To be honest, I didn't hear about chapter board applications until the day before they were due. Before applying for a position on chapter board, I had only been to a few events towards the end of eighth grade. I really enjoyed them, but I had no idea there even was a board working behind-the-scenes to plan the events and activities, let alone how much work it put in. So I signed up with my friend Anna for what I thought would be the easiest position available: Freshman Representative. It proved to be a huge time commitment and a lot of hard work, but it was a blast and totally worth it. I knew that I wanted to get even more involved in the following year. After a lot of thinking, I decided to apply for Chapter President, and I'm so happy that I did.

     Everything that we've accomplished is directly linked to Adina Schwartz and Uri Farber, USYers from my chapter who graduated this past year. Adina made an entire board come out of thin air and is the reason that after just a couple years of existence we won chapter of the year. However, last year was a pretty big jump for our newly-developing chapter. We had more people on board, more consistent events that teens would look forward to, and better communication through flyers and announcements in our synagogue.

     This year, my goal is to 'play up our strong regulars' like Friday Night Lights, and work to create new and creative events. We are already working on a system to make our communication even better, which is going great so far. My personal goal as chapter president is to make our chapter extremely welcoming, because that is my favorite part of USY. I also want to make it more inclusive to public school and day school teens. I want them to experience this amazing chapter! And remember, we're more than ok... we're OKUSY!

By Michael Morbeto & Jonathan Katz, Shaare Shalom USY

     The two of us have been involved in our synagogue for as long as we can remember. When we first heard about Kadima and USY, it looked like just another fun Jewish program we could participate in with our friends. In reality, it ended up providing us with amazing leadership opportunities such as being on our chapter board. We currently serve as the Religion/Education VP and then Israeli Affairs VP for our chapter board.

     The first year our chapter was eligible to have a board just so happened to be the first year we joined USY. No one from our synagogue knew much about Chapter or Regional leadership except for our friend, Lilly Shankman. With her encouragement, we ran for our positions on chapter board. None of us expected it to be such a big part of our lives, but we are overjoyed with what USY has done for us.

We have achieved so much success over the course of the previous year, even with the challenges we faced as a new chapter. Throughout the year, our chapter began to pick up steam because we wanted it to reach its greatest potential. Our consistent meetings, friendship, and intense passion for USY formed the wonderful board we have today, which contributes to our fantastic chapter.

     Our main goal this year is to continue the success we achieved last year. We are working towards performing our specific positions to the best of our abilities in order to add diversity to our events.  We hope our initiatives as well as the immense amount of time, effort, and patience put in by our fellow board members and USY Advisor will allow our chapter to thrive even more by the end of the year and in many years to come.