Achiezer- Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender Speech, & Phil Goldfeder Award Presentation

[Music] I want to thank once again it's not the first time they've done it for the As rabbitson for opening their home and um a few people have told me whenever spe gets passionate about something it's very evident and very obvious and I think we all see that tonight and we're very to him particularly just want to mention it's a very big for me personally to be able to welcome my grandmother here she's and join us for many more occasions and only I'm going to be very brief we're going to give a very short presentation I'm ask my friend who I have to thank publicly for his tremendous uh trip in special from Baltimore a lot of scheduling and figuring out and making it work and I uh I think I shouldn't speak for him that our friend agreed and accepted once we impressed upon him what the organization is all about and he he agreed to come in and we're very maryp to him very very short ver and uh we'll move along Mr we talk about the and um and all the there's a lot of counting the entire time counting Counting and there's a census and we know very P very simple the census was not done by counting the actual people each person gave a a shekele each person gave a half a shekele and from this they were able to figure out how many people the T were and they have their actual census the obvious question asked by almost all is very simple once they were giving a shekele why not a whole shekele each person every person in K is partaking every person is going to be a part of this give it a whole shek and the answer I think we can answer is that every yid on his own CL sh every single person needs to take care of their fellow yid and each person giving a half it's very hard to attain slus and when the entire CL gets together every single person there's no an there's no I'm a whole person we're all not have we're all hes and every person goes ahead and contributes together the combined result then attain then everyone could be considered one but unless we without empathy without feeling for another person without being there for our fellow Yen there's no such thing Asus but once that's done then we can talk out the senses then we can count chil then there's actual pure Schamus so I I I think it's obviously appropriate when we say such a when we hear such a v that it makes sense for what the a mission is all about which all of you know quite well at this point some of you don't know as well just helping people helping one another day and night and that's why I am a on behalf of six people now that work in the organization full-time again there was two people last year barash or I shouldn't say barem we've been forced to grow um because the community has needed us but a humbling part of all that is the fact that there are so many volunteers that are part of the organization I asked Esther who works very hard in the office D earlier to try to give me an idea of how many she said for sure she didn't have an exact number there were more than a 100 active volunteers doing all sorts of things for the organization whether it's cooking a meal whether it's budgeting whether it's a social worker whether it's visiting I can go on and on today we have a a volunteer putting in an air conditioner for an indent fellow who can't afford to do it himself whatever it may be tremendous amount of volunteers 2 minutes I'm going to I'm going to P up Phil goldfeder and just with a presentation a quick background of what the organization works this I like to think there a two-prong mission people that are calling us with all sorts of issues problems and requests it's not our job or our capability or the possibility to solve every single problem we have a tremendous amount of existing organizations for example I was talking just now to es F who's here the B if a person calls us needing a ride to a doctor which is a service that they do our job is to make the guard and referral to get it over to them and on and on any need that comes up we work with the existing organizations and the more difficult part obviously comes into play when when that service does not exist and that is where the community with the organization really has grown over the last year just to mention two or three items very very quickly in the last year we've started been asked to start an entire Mental Health Department more eloquently more appropriately like to say it's a department where anybody in the community that's having a difficult time there are several issues that need to be worked through they will be met with privately by a fir social worker who will walk them lovingly and guarding through every step in their life and not just as a referral they will hold their hands and walk them through until they are bar able to stand again on their own we have an insurance department now which is more than one PR whether it's people that actually need insurance enrollment or whether it's with advocacy just a few months ago Cara grew up from our board who was our official Insurance Consultant there was a young girl being denied a surgery in the community and she had to have a life- saving procedure and there was no way to get around it and Bar because of again someone's participation in the organization or if Cara didn't stop phone calls faxing back and forth and I believe days or hours before the surgery was scheduled take place they both more successful and last but not least the tremendous core part of the organization I might say is the medical hospital support program and that is when someone makes a phone call and again we always remind ourselves nobody wants to be making this phone call someone's calling us it's usually because they're in they're in a crisis they have an emergency our job at that point when someone calls need or having a hospital type situation what we will do is take them by the hand whether it's just getting the doctor's appointment getting them to the doctor making sure the insurance will work making sure the food angle is taken care of making sure the insurance will be accept whatever it may be when they make that phone call we will take it from them and walk them through step by step I'm going to end with a short short story I'll make it as short as possible that happened uh several weeks ago which really illustrates a little bit of what we do and the Y the sha that we are able to witness firsthand all the time which was very evident in this story about I think exactly exactly four weeks ago where they received a phone call that there was a a young woman out in Long Island in the community that needed to be admitted NE to a psychiatric facility and they couldn't get her in a lot of what we do obviously is working with the hospitals working with the rehab facilities to get her in and we tried and we tried and we were working and finally we found give you the real facts and email address of the head of the department there so I went on the computer I wrote to him my name is R Bender I'm calling from this organiz writing from this organization can you please somehow they said there's no beds can you help us get it better for this person hours passed in the meantime and the story is almost over we got a phone call from Lutheran Hospital in Brooklyn they called us as is their practice whenever they were transferring a child that's critically hurt to Li they call our organization to assist and take care of the different things that be doing just to give you an idea when someone gets brought to a hospital like that we will activate several different departments by the time they arrive in the hospital like that we'll have one person who will deal with me the right doctors are on their case we will even tend to their psychological needs we will send a firm social worker to the hospital these things usually happen in traumatic quick sudden instances that will take care of the mental health wellbeing the be the meals and more program run dedicatedly by many many women who are who are here in the kitchen in this community will take care of the food the family will be taken care of so they called and they said that there's a young child and I called permission say from the father to say over the story without his name of course that was being was hit by a trucko and and and and they were being brought to the hospital terrible injuries all over going to require very very very life altery life saving hopefully surgery we need this in this doctor we called the hospital back and forth this doctor was not to be found this doctor that had this specific specialty in the midst of all that if you're still following the story which I promise would be short we got a phone call I'm sorry we got an email I'll tell you his name from a Dr Rosen he writes my name is Dr Rosen you emailed me 4 hours ago by getting a child into the hospital psychiatric hospital I feel bad my name is Dr Nelson Rosen you're looking for Dr Noah Rosen who runs the the hillside program over there I'll be glad to for you her information I apologize and have a great day Rabbi and he CC on the email to the person who runs that department you're all familiar with the email let's to give you the exact effects I scroll down and I look and sign Nelson Rosen director of the Pediatric Trauma Center LJ with a certain sub specialty just to give you the exact exact facts which was Urology which is areas that are below the waist and Trauma together which is and pediatric this was his unique specialty which was Mish the injury we were dealing with with the other case and we could not find a doctor so I wrote back to him actual doctor there is a way you can help with where can I reach you and I called him up he was actually on the way out of St Francis Hospital in Rosland he has rights in more than one hospital he turned around he went back to the hospital he operated on this trial for I believe eight or 9 hours Ros from the boord was here and myself with there in the hospital we went there I think they came out of surgery this happened at 8:00 I think about 4:00 in the morning and barem I think the family said that it's doctor can be credited with obviously the direction and the and the help of the re that this child will be live a healthy long life ahead I don't think we need any greater Testament to see that follows us witness when one start one act leads to another and we bar have seen that in a situation like that very very quickly we have sitting here Phil gold Fetter and just to give it like a like a promise true real facts the reason why we asked him to come tonight is that pure he's helped us in the past in different ways but particularly Less Than 3 weeks ago there was a mpar for the neighbor and that needed some tremendous assistance with Medicaid and different kinds of things that they were being denied I believe a large family wife was about to give birth and there was just I believe bills numbering over $100,000 which no matter which way they turned they couldn't got it taken away we called Phil I mean emailed him it didn't take two or three emails to phone calls and I already got word back from the family that something's happening something's changing days later after the weekend things were activated and the relief that he brought this mishak was was could be Untold we asked him to come tonight so we could present him a small token of appreciation there's one mistake on the uh wherever it is I hope I don't get in trouble but it does say here presented to The Honorable Phil G that will be saved for when he is formally elected wasn't supposed to be there in recognition of his selfless dedication on behalf of the members of our community we are proud to consider Phil a true friend aers who was always there for us when called upon presented May 30th 2011 annual far [Applause] reception it was funny and thank you thank you for this and it was funny seeing the uh the advertisements and the hakara award and I think the irony in the akaro award is because we're all here to show HOV to AER and to the great work that they do I'm asking you before you leave and many of you have already to make make sure that you show your hard cars at to and and write the checks and not those big ones that the politicians hand out because those aren't real but the real the real checks that could be here to help the organization if I can I've had the privilege to work for the city council for the mayor of the city of New York and now for for Senator Schumer and in all those jobs there's only one constant that we need tremendous Community Partners tremendous organizations who are on the ground to do the work that we sometimes are unable to do and azer in a short time has been able to to fill a gap and to provide a service that uh wasn't there before and really make our lives in government better and and and enable us to work together so I encourage you to to really do your best to help and and I urge you to continue to support organizations like this and whatever role I'm in in the future I know that azra will be here for this community for growing to help communities around the city and and God willing whatever I and whatever capacity I will be in at that time and I urge you to register to vote um I I know that a will be there to support me in the community so thank you very much I just want to point out be Mar I tell you two people who are sitting right in front of me I know they won't be happy were critical and instrumental in in founding the organization and that is Mr R linger and my father RAB bender and I thank them for being here [Applause]