Over the past few months, I have had the privilege of working alongside Taylor Marlowe (Hudson Valley Region), Josh Feldman (Northern Region East: DC Council), and David Sternfeld (Eastern: Southeast Council), to lead and organize the creation of 30+ IC separates programs. 

The process began with Zoom calls, introducing ourselves to each other and getting to know our incredible staff that would help guide us along the way. We began formulating a plan to divide our steerers into their groups and brainstorm a massive list of program ideas while staying within the specific modalities set out to us by our admins & coordinators.

 Our first full committee call was a massive success. Every teen was engaged, and they were excited to begin working on their programs. Although the division of all of the teens was semi-complicated, the captains had a method to our madness. Between four captains, 3 Shabbat categories, and 3 options for programming (AZA, BBG, or BBYO), along with 7 modalities, coming up with the perfect split for our programs was a bit of a challenge. However, with the help of our staff and collaborative teamwork, we worked it out perfectly. Each captain was assigned 3 programs to oversee, steered by two to three steerers per program. During this call, we got to know our steerers well and helped them begin brainstorming what they wanted their perfect programs to look like. 

As the weeks went on, the programs began taking shape impeccably. As captains, we had regular meetings to discuss the progress and were consistently blown away by the hard work and dedication presented by the steerers, which was so apparent in their programs. 

Working so closely with each group of steerers was extremely rewarding. They have so much passion for BBYO and their separate programs, and it was inspiring to see how they put their thoughts and ideas to words and created countless programs from scratch.