It's Time To Catch Up
March 3, 2012
1. It has been way too long since I've written but here I am at 6am on a Saturday morning feeling the need to update. As I said, this is long overdue so I will start with the very successful May 5th, 2011 bingo event held at Espace Reunion and hosted by long time supporter, CJAD's Andrew Carter. A great time was had by all and money was raised for our two outstanding programs, The Mack Belson Early Academic Interventio Program and The Mack Belson Reading Camp.
2. Backtracking to last summer, The 2011 Mack Belson Reading Camp was once again, an overwhelming success. Our award winning educator, BJEC's Aviva Segal and her volunteers did an amazing job, as usual, improving the reading skills of the children. The highlight of the session was Rumple-Stilt-Who?, the first ever fluency play presented by some readers of The Mack Belson Reading Camp and the presentation of books to the children. The Jewish Public Library offered each child a free membership to encourage their newfound love of reading.
3. In September 2011, we were honoured that the Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program was the recipient of Combined Jewish Appeal's 2011 Community Service Award. This award was presented to us at their general meeting....
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A New School Year Gets Underway
September 2, 2010
With the blink of an eye, summer is slowly fading away and a new school year has begun. The Mack Belson Reading Camp had another successful session and every child attending left with amazing reading skills at higher levels than they came with. We now make the transition from reading camp to early intervention program and so begin the preparations and planning for another round of assessments and follow ups for The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program. Thirteen Jewish elementary schools are part of the program for the 2010-2011 school year which means that more than five hundred kindergarten children will be assessed. Today I met with Aviva Segal, Karen Gazith and the new special needs coordinator at BJEC, Carly Rosenzweig to discuss expectations for the upcoming year. We will also be testing a pilot program at the Pre-K level at the JPPS Childrens Centre. The same principles will apply, assess and work with the teachers by giving them tools to help the children achieve academic success.
We are also busy gearing up for our second annual poker tournament that will be held on Thursday, November fourth at The Four Aces Poker Room in Kahnawake. We are planning on having a wonderful evening with all...
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2010 Summer Reading Camp Registration Almost Complete
June 6, 2010
I hope everyone is having a nice start to their summer. Registration for the 2010 Mack Belson Reading Camp has been underway since May 17th. The camp officially begins on June 28th and we are looking forward to another successful session.
On a separate note, David and I want to thank everyone who attended our fourth annual fundraiser on April 29th at Le Living Room. It was a great bingo night with Andrew Carter doing a wonderful job again as our guest bingo caller and Ruby Belson as our raffle caller extraordinaire. Over 700 prizes were given away and more money was raised to help fund both The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention program and The Mack Belson Reading Camp.
We have begun planning for our second annual poker tournament to be held in November and are just in the process of finalizing the details which will be posted as soon as they are complete.
And last but not least, Aviva has finished the second set of screenings in the schools and is in the process of writing up the reports. I wanted to include her latest update to me.
"Every case is uplifting but today I had a particularly rewarding encounter...
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University of Montreal and Dawson on Board
April 10, 2010
Aviva sent me an update on the status of the intervention program yesterday and rather than paraphrase, I am simply going to put down what she wrote.
"I am in the middle of writing up progress reports on the students. It is unbelievably time consuming but the documented progress the vast majority of students have made is tremendous! On Wednesday, I met with an Early Childhood Education professor from U of M. At our initial and informal meeting, it became clear that we share the same philosophies about early intervention and her department will be an excellent source from which we can recruit stagiares. Yesterday, I met with the Dawson stage supervisor and my Dawson stagiare. The supervisor was so impressed with the EAI program and the knowledge her student has acquired that she asked me to take on two stagiares next year."
From a small apple seed of an idea, we now have McGill, University of Montreal and Dawson on board with our programs. On a personal level, especially this month, I'd like to think that my boy is smiling his beautiful smile and is proud of all that is being done in his name.
We are also underway preparing for...
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Stagiare Update
January 27, 2010
I received my regular update today from Aviva Segal, the early intervention specialist who heads our programs and was really pleased with what she had to say. She let me know that we already have a stagiare from McGill booked for next year. It is still really early for this but this volunteer really wanted to join. McGill said it was too late for this year so she informed us that she will wait for placement in the 2010/2011 session of the early intervention program. She told Aviva that she heard such wonderful things about the program from her peers who have been or are currently stagiares. In addition, two of Aviva's current stagiares who are helping her with the interventions now going on, extended their placements from one term to a full year. This means a lot as the reputation of both The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program and The Mack Belson Reading Camp is growing within the universities. We rely on these stagiares to help us with our programs and they in turn get to benefit from the experience of working with Aviva in what are becoming top notch programs. How great is it that the Education/Psych department of...
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The Mack Belson Early Intervention Program and Summer Reading Camp Update
December 16, 2009
Today I had a meeting with Aviva Segal at BJEC to get an update on the screenings that were recently completed on over 500 kindergarten students for The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program. First and foremost, I would like to say how happy David and I are with Aviva at the helm of this wonderful program. Her level of commitment and professionalism is beyond reproach and each time I meet with her, I am reminded how lucky we are to have such an amazing administrator. We are also grateful to Dr. Karen Gazith and Fiona Nanson for their dedication and all the BJEC personnel including Helene Kaufman, Randi Glazer, Frumet Singer and Shifra Manis for helping with the day to day running of these programs. The purpose of this meeting was to talk about what has happened so far during this academic school year and what is in store for the months to come. With the help of Ed/Psych Master level stagiares from the department of Education at Mcgill University, Aviva has completed the assessments. When school resumes in January, interventions will begin for those children determined to be in some need of help. In May, reassessments will occur for a percentage of children. Of...
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A Great Night At The Mack Belson Foundation First Annual Poker Tournament
November 6, 2009
Last night, 100 players attended our first annual poker tournament held at Le Living Room. Produced in conjunction with C3 Events, everyone had a great time. The food and cocktails started at 6pm and poker got under way at approximately 7:30. We didn't know what to expect with regard to attendance but everything fell into place. Although we have organized three previous fundraisers, this was the first time we attempted a poker night and we could not be happier with the results of the evening. Money was raised to help fund The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program and The Mack Belson Reading Camp and people had fun. A big thank you must be extended to Eric Liverman and Donny Prashker who were adament about doing a poker tournament, who convinced David and I to go ahead with it and who helped us every step of the way. Another thank you to Steve Merling of C3 who helped us with the logistics and who was a great tournament director. Our deepest gratitude goes to all the volunteers of which there are too many to name but who we could not do without. As usual, Ruby Belson did a great job, this time calling...
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The Mack Belson Foundation 2009 First Annual Poker Tournament
August 28, 2009
We are really pleased to announce that our first annual poker tournament will be held on Thursday, Nov. 5th at Le Living Room. We are also really happy to be working with Steve Merling of C3 events who has been an absolute pleasure to deal with. This tournament is happening because David has been playing poker on Thursday nights for years with the same guys. A great group of men who have been wanting to do a poker tournament in Mack's memory and to benefit the foundation for a couple of years. We held back because we did not want our fundraisers to compete with each other but this year, we felt confident and have decided to go ahead. We have worked very hard over the past 3 years to establish ourselves and although there is a lot of work still left to do, we know that we have come a long way. The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program and The Mack Belson Reading Camp, both administered by the Bronfman Jewish Education Centre are growing and we are so proud of these two programs. This year, the early intervention program will be in 17 Jewish elementary schools and we have plans to extend the 2010 reading...
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The Mack Belson Reading Camp A Huge Success
July 16, 2009
Today was the last day of the Mack Belson Summer Reading Camp and again, I showed up to quietly observe. I had the privilege of meeting a young boy who was practicing reading a script with Fiona (Nanson). He informed me that he was intent on pursuing an acting career and Fiona thought that he would enjoy reading an actual script. This made me laugh, as well as his mother, who was patiently waiting for him. I got to talking with her and explained who I was. I asked her how the camp experience had been for her and her son and was really happy to hear her comments. How wonderful is it that her biggest complaint was that the camp was not long enough. She said her son, who had been having difficulty reading, had shown tremendous improvement and that the BJEC staff could not have been more accommodating. I also received an email from Aviva Segal who runs the program and she had attached some testimonials from parents about the camp. I will be posting them on the website tonight. On this third anniversary of Mack's death, I take comfort in the success of the reading camp named after...
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The Mack Belson Reading Camp Begins
June 29, 2009
Welcome to the first post of The Mack Belson Foundation Apple Blog, a new feature on our website. It is here that I will be able to offer a personal insight into the developments and initiatives of the foundation and keep everyone in touch with what is going on. This morning I dropped into the Bronfman Jewish Education Centre so I could be there for the first day of The Mack Belson Reading Camp. I had a chance to meet some of the parents and to peek in on the kids in the pre-reading group. I did not want to stay too long and kind of faded into the background but not before I had a chance to take it all in. There are twenty kids registered in the camp which may not sound like a big number but to us, it means the world. Twenty kids who will get a chance to improve their reading skills and increase their chances of academic success. This is what it is all about. A big thank you to Aviva Segal, Karen Gazith and Fiona Nanson for their hard work in creating this camp. There is a need for it and our hope is for it...
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