by DeDe Jacobs-Komisar, Development Manager
There’s a voice in my head that has always equated asking for help with admitting defeat. Call it impatience or ego, but I prefer to barrel ahead with a task myself and hope for the best than wait for support or feedback. As you can imagine, this strategy has serious drawbacks. While it’s helped me be independent and get many things done, it’s also resulted in unfinished projects and half-cleaned houses and cake that doesn’t bake properly because I thought I knew better than the recipe. Each time, I finally realize that I don’t know everything and I can’t do everything myself.
I’ve gotten much better over the years, but it hasn’t been easy. Working at Mayyim Hayyim has helped me, seeing people who let down their guard to find support and healing in the mikveh. In my position as Development Manager, I’ve learned to ask for help in meeting our fundraising goals from our dedicated volunteer Development Committee and Board. Of course, fundraising itself is asking for help–showing our community members that we can’t do it alone, that your support is vital to keeping us afloat (I’ve also learned to make a lot of water puns).
Nevertheless, I still struggle with asking for help. Unfortunately, my husband Yaakov tends to have the same problem. Two weeks ago, he took a bad fall off a ladder and ended up in the hospital. Thank God he’s okay, but he sustained a major concussion and broken shoulder. It was hard for him to get used to needing help doing just about everything in those first few days, but he had to learn to just ask.
Yaakov is back at work and doing much better. Things get a little more normal every day, but I’m hoping that one thing is permanently changed – that we will have both learned to just ask for help. Maybe a silver lining to all of this is that as a fundraiser, my faith was renewed in the enormous power of just asking. Chances are, many people are willing, even excited, to provide support if you communicate your cause effectively. How best to do this is the art and science of my job that I’m constantly trying to perfect, but this experience showed me once again that it can be done.
So this is me asking for your help. Here at Mayyim Hayyim, we’re in the last eight weeks of our fiscal year and need your support to keep providing life-changing moments every day. Fifty percent of people who immerse here cannot afford to pay our suggested donation amount — your gift makes you a partner in their transformative experiences and in our groundbreaking work for the community as a whole. To support Mayyim Hayyim you can email me or make a gift online at www.mayyimhayyim.org/donate.
And this is me saying thank you. No really — Thank you.
DeDe Jacobs-Komisar is Development Manager at Mayyim Hayyim and is extremely grateful for everyone’s help.