Hannah Feldman & Kim Lindner, Co-Presidents    

Samantha Smitte, Youth Advisor    

On Sunday, March 3rd, we kicked off the Temple Beth Am Jr youth group! This youth group is geared to grades 4 through 6, and will offer the older grades an opportunity to gain leadership experience.

At Sundays meeting Samantha introduced the concept of youth group to the children, and led them in a Cupcake war style activity. After explaining what youth group was, Samantha asked each child to decorate a cupcake themed to the activity they wanted to participate in. It was a great success, with over 20 children in attendance, and invaluable insight given to what they wanted to see at events.

Cupcake Themes included: Hiking, Movie Night, Sports, Sight Seeing, Go Karts, Laser Tag, and Pool Parties.

BATY (Beth Am Temple Youth) is made up of Jewish teenagers in 6th - 12th grade who want to make friends and give back to their community. By being involved in BATY youth have prime opportunities to make friends for life, use leadership skills, do good things for the community and be surrounded by kids just like themselves. This is a highly enthusiastic and engaging auxiliary of Temple Beth Am’s community.

All activities are supervised by the youth advisor and other youth-friendly adults. All participants must sign a code of conduct to participate in activities, so that youth group is a comfortable environment for everyone. The Temple Youth Committee, made up of adults and teens, meets several times a year in support of the youth groups.

The 2012 - 2013 BATY Year has kicked off! This year there will be a large focus on programming, tikkun olam, and leadership. Teens will have the opportunities to develop their skills in public speaking, organization/time management, and group dynamics.

Samantha Smitte has joined Temple Beth Am as the new BATY Youth Director. She comes with great leadership experience and a real passion for youth programming. Samantha currently lives in Randolph, NJ, where she works full time for the Hebrew Academy of Morris County.

She officially started with BATY on October 1, 2012, and is eager to become involved with the temple.  She aims to revitalize the group with effective and engaging programs, as well as leadership opportunities for the teens. BATY will be holding their first event of the year on October 21st, at 12:30 PM in the Board Room. Feel free to contact Samantha with any questions via email at Q4011@aol.com.