Latest news from the teens of BBYO Naples

By Cayla Schreier: BBYO Southwest Coordinator

April was a very busy month for the BBYO teens of Naples. Our teens held a chapter meeting in early April to discuss the upcoming Chapter board elections. The teens are excited to become more involved in BBYO by taking on more leadership responsibilities. Our newly recruited BBYO advisor, Ben Yaffe, led the meeting. Yaffe is a BBYO alum from Ohio who is passionate about Jewish leadership and community. The teens enjoyed hearing about his experiences in BBYO and how he could guide the teens of BBYO Naples to guarantee their future success.

Everyone had a wonderful Passover holiday celebration with friends and family. Some even volunteered at a senior care facility to help run a Passover seder for its residents. This break helped the teens become more excited about attending their Spring Regional Convention in Orlando.

The Spring Regional Convention is the BBYO year-end celebration of this past programming year. Our Naples chapter was well represented at the North Florida Region’s SRC with eight of the 39 total teens in attendance. The teens participated in a chapter programming showcase, Shabbat services, regional spirit competition and the election of the North Florida Region’s regional board. This event provided teens the opportunity to form friendships with teens from other parts of the North Florida Region such as Tampa, Gainesville and Orlando. It also allowed them to collaborate and share ideas about chapter events, meetings and social media.

Our teens showed up with excitement and Naples BBYO spirit. The Naples chapter not only won the chapter programming talent showcase and rap battle, but also ended up winning the regional spirit competition and the Spirit Stick.

Three of our teens won model BBYO member awards for being great role models to other BBYO teens. Two teens won Universal Orlando tickets due to their model behavior at the event. Our teens went from low regional participation at the beginning of the school year to winning the regional spirit competition. They left SRC with new friends and a new exciting and positive outlook for their Naples chapter.

The teens plan to hold a beach cleanup and Shabbat dinner, Naples BBYO chapter elections and an end of the 2022-2023 school year Cupcake Wars Celebration.

If you know of someone who has a teen who might like to join BBYO, or become an advisor to our chapters, please email me at cschreier@bbyo.org. Follow us for updates on Instagram at Mishpacha_BBG.

Supporting our teenage Jewish community

Post-B’nai Mitzvah age teens' involvement in BBYO and eagerness to create and confidently continue their own Jewish community within their greater Jewish communities is critical to our future.

Naples is partnering with Jewish Federation of Greater Naples, Temple Shalom, Chabad of Naples and Beth Tikvah. Each organization provides support for our teens. We thank everyone for providing a great environment for them.

Both Jewish Federation of Greater Naples and the Temple Shalom Men’s Club offer scholarships to attend BBYO conventions and summer programs. For more information on scholarships, please contact Cayla. To be included in our friends and alumni of BBYO mailing list, email us at mjs0821@aol.com.