Highlighting Local Heroes

OUR COMMUNITY

Rabbi Harold Loss with Hillel students Cailey Levine, Mia Levine and Sydney Dolgin.

COURTESY OF HILLEL

Highlighting Local Heroes

Hillel holds “Heroes Panel” for fifth graders.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER On Feb 1, Hillel Day School held its sixth annual Heroes Panel, where Hillel fifth-grade students hear stories about and get inspired by local heroes.

Among the speakers at the panel was Joanne Lukasik, financial controller at Hillel, who told her life story and passion for playing hockey ever since she was a young girl, even after having both legs severed just below the knees at 16 years old in a farming accident.

Other panelists included Tom Fitzgerald, who gave his father one of his kidneys in 2019; Hillel teacher Amy Piesz, who told the story of a neighbor saving her dog from a house fire; Rabbi Harold Loss, telling the story of Bill Farber, a philanthropist and businessman who transformed the Metro Detroit Jewish community by giving away all of his money before his passing in 2017; and Nicole Miller, a Hillel faculty member and close relative of Tate Myre, a student who

LEFT: Financial

controller at Hillel, Joanne Lukasik, whose passion for playing hockey continues decades after an accident.

RIGHT: Tom

Fitzgerald, along with his father, John, who he gave one of his kidneys to in 2019.