From The Co-Presidents
Dear CBI Community,
Spring is upon us! We hope you are enjoying the longer days, and growing warmth, and all the other signs of spring.
We enter this season with hope and gratitude – thankful for our joyous Purim gathering, our Community Passover Seder (special thanks to Jesse Thomas for the photos below), for the new CBI members we are welcoming, and for the three joyful b-mitzvahs in our building this semester.
Looking forward, please save the date for our annual meeting on Wednesday, May 27 at 7pm at CBI – we hope you all can attend. We will summarize the year, preview the year ahead, and vote to elect CBI board members and officers.
While the overall financial picture of CBI is strong (including some recent good news), we are behind on our dues collection this year. We understand that mail has been unreliable, so you may have sent in your check but it may not have been received. We will be sending out Q2 dues notices in early April – please look for it and send your payment as soon as possible. As you know, we rely heavily on dues to cover our expenses. Please check in with the CBI office if you have any questions about your payment. Remember, you can also fulfill your dues commitment with a donation of stock.
Thank you for your generous donations to the “Bring The Heat” campaign to fund our new HVAC system, which will be installed beginning May 11. We have raised almost $57,000 towards our $100,000 goal – it’s not too late to add your name to the growing list of donors! Read more about it and make your donation online here, or send a donation by check (which avoids the service fee that online donations incur).
In other good news, we are thrilled to share that CBI was recently awarded a nonprofit security grant from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We are deeply thankful to our elected officials Rep. John Barrett III, Sen. Paul Mark, and North Adams Mayor Jennifer Macksey for writing letters of support. This was a competitive grant process and we were pleased to receive over $41,000 for needed security improvements to keep us all as safe and secure as possible in our beautiful building. Special thanks to Natalie and Roger Matus who put in many hours of hard work on this application, as well as on a pending federal grant.
We hope to see you soon at CBI!
B’Shalom,
— Natalie Matus & Wendy Penner
