Welcome Bridey Stangler

(Published May 25, 2017)

If you are familiar with our school-age programs, you have most likely already met our new Director of Camps & Youth Programs. If you haven’t…well, you are missing out. Bridey comes to us with a wealth of experience in JCCs, camps and youth programs. Bridey is thrilled to be joining the Indy JCC! She grew up in the Kansas City Jewish community, spent her childhood in youth groups and Jewish organizations, and enjoyed wonderful lakeside summers at overnight camps. We sat down to get to know her better and this is what we learned:

Favorite word:

Ephemeral. Or fecund. Or murmuration.

Least favorite word:

Impact. It’s unnecessarily violent and certainly overused.

Favorite food (fruit, vegetable or food):

Avocados and my mother’s kugel. Preferably not at the same time.

Favorite movie and why:

The Darjeeling Limited because it’s beautiful. Away We Go because everything turns out okay. And 300 because it’s awesome.

Favorite book:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Or The World to Come by Dara Horn. Or maybe The Pilgrimage of Harold Frye by Rachel Joyce. You meant other than Harry Potter, right?

Funniest thing you’ve overheard a child say?

Two campers were sitting at a picnic table. These kids are, maybe, 9. One camper says, indignantly, “My mom didn’t pack me any cookies today!” The other camper shakes his head and sighs sagely: “America.”

Favorite memory from when you went to camp.

The feeling of being a song leader is impossible to describe to those who haven’t done it. But picture yourself with a guitar and a hall full of three hundred kids, leading your last Shabbat song session at the Camp you grew up at. The room is lit by fifteen sets of Shabbat candles. Everyone is singing the same song, and everyone is doing the same dance, and it’s so loud that JCC staff members come from their offices across the building to see it for themselves.

That’s Camp. And it makes me feel full to the brim just to think of it.

Born in Kansas City?

Born and bred! You guys think you have good barbecue here, but it’s only because you haven’t eaten at the Oklahoma Joe’s that’s run out of the gas station at 47^th and Mission.