Steve Solomon and Sharon Ungerleider met last January at a potluck sponsored by New Bridges, a Peninsula Jewish outreach organization. Engaged on Oct. 20, they were in the planning stages of their wedding, and chose Feb. 24 to walk down the aisle.
But when Solomon broke the news to his friend George Youngerman, he found out that his impending nuptials conflicted with the day some consider the most important on the Jewish community calendar: Super Sunday.
Solomon’s reaction? He checked with his fiancée and changed his wedding date. Now, the Mountain View couple will wed on Feb. 10.
That made Youngerman very happy. “I was very pleased, not only from a personal standpoint, but because there would have been other people like myself who would have had to make a choice of one or the other, his wedding or yapping on the phone,” he said.
According to Solomon, when he first asked Ungerleider, who is a genetic counselor at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose, about changing the date, she reacted by asking, “What’s Super Sunday?” But somehow, he managed to convince her of its importance, and she agreed to move up the wedding.
Solomon and Youngerman are among the estimated 1,000 volunteers who will work the phones at the annual fund-raiser.
Super Sunday — when hoards of eager volunteers work in shifts, calling donors to pledge funds to the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation — depends solely on the efforts of volunteers like Solomon and Youngerman.
This year volunteers will staff phones from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco’s Presidio and at the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto.
Whether the downturn in the economy will affect the annual pledge drive remains to be seen.
“Right now we know the economic situation is affecting some people, but we have not seen it seriously affect our campaigning so far,” said Ed Cushman, assistant executive director of the JCF. “We certainly hope that will continue to be the situation.”
Noting that the JCF traditionally gets nearly half its donor list to make campaign pledges on Super Sunday, he said, “We don’t want our Jewish community to be hugely hurt by whatever the events are, economic or Sept. 11. We have to get beyond it as much as we can and help our community to grow.”
Solomon and Youngerman would agree. The two met on a JCF Young Adult Division mission to Israel in 1991 and have been friends ever since. Solomon has been volunteering for Super Sunday since the late 1980s and has hardly missed a year, putting in his stint at the ALSJCC.
A mortgage broker with Diversified Capital in Los Altos, Solomon, who said he is “about 41,” was on the board of YAD and has been involved with a number of JCF-sponsored activities.
Year after year, he makes those calls on Super Sunday to remind donors to dig into their pockets.
“I just go for the M&Ms,” he joked, referring to the large glass bowls filled with candy, placed near the phone banks to provide callers with a sugar rush, if needed.
Seriously, he said, “I go because I give to the federation, and I want to encourage others to give. If we don’t have funds coming in, we’re going to not have the services. Plus, it’s social and enjoyable, I always have fun at it. I like shmoozing with my fellow volunteers.”
Youngerman, 47, is a former Novato resident who has been living in Tucson, Ariz., for the past three years. But he still donates to the JCF as well as his local federation.
“I lived in the Bay Area for 20 years, and it’s a connection that I don’t want to erase,” he said. “When you get involved in a community, it often becomes a family.”
Youngerman still maintains his advertising business in the Bay Area. When the JCF board decided to begin advertising Super Sunday on the airwaves, Youngerman was the one they turned to.
Had Solomon’s wedding remained on Super Sunday, Youngerman probably would have gone. But he was glad his friend didn’t put him in the position of having to make that choice.
“Every day you see the federation involved in so many aspects of communal life, whether it’s delivering meals to the elderly or helping refugees or families who’ve experienced hard times,” he said. “There’s a litany of things federation does that people don’t realize. As a Jew I feel it’s extremely important to give back and give as much as you can, whether it’s by volunteering your time or contributing money.”