Just three short months ago, a group of very dedicated volunteers polled the parents of the Deal community and decided it was time for our children to have something wonderful to do on Sundays. Shortly thereafter, Sunday Mania was born! Tons of research and hundreds of phone calls were made to find outstanding workshops in order to develop a quality seven-week program for Pre-K through 6th graders.
The volunteers anticipated that they might attract 100 children but never could have imagined that over 170 kids would sign up during their Superbowl Sunday bash alone! A couple of weeks later, over 280 children were signed up and ready to have the time of their lives!
Next came the makeover of Deal Sephardic Network’s (DSN) Sunday Mania headquarters on Meridian Road. Shirley Franco and her decorating team—Geri Menaged, Michelle Zekaria, Linda Massry, Teri Cohen, Vicki Gindi, Heather Ades and Sarah Abady— completely transformed the building! They rolled up their sleeves and with brushes, rollers, buckets of paint and handmade decorations they got to work. Three days later the building looked brand new! Much thanks to all of those wonderful and creative women for all of their time, hard work and generosity!
From the very first week, the children of our community were treated to four hours of fun. The workshops included everything from Actor’s Garage, Super Science, Mosaics and No Bake Cooking, to Mr. Z’s Awesome Sports Program, Scrapbooking, Club Mud, the Glitzy Girls, Snakes and Scales, Magic—even Strawberry Bouquets and much, much more! Thank you to all of the professionals who helped to make the first DSN Sunday Mania a huge success.
DSN is proud of the many high school students who enthusiastically helped to supervise the kids and enjoyed the activities themselves!
Everyone knows that a program as successful as this could never, ever come together without the people behind the scenes—the backbone of DSN Sunday Mania. A huge thank you to Sunday Mania Chairperson, Stephanie Matut for putting her heart and soul into creating and planning the program, not to mention being there every Sunday making sure the program runs smoothly, and even teaching chocolate making classes!
A special thanks to very special volunteers, Stephanie Dweck, Sophia Serouya, Margaret Ashkenazi, Ikey Dweck and so many others for everything from helping with sign-ins, doling out lunches, loading buses, to doing whatever was needed—whenever it was needed!
Lastly, DSN would like to thank the families and children of the community for their support.
“Sunday Mania offered something fresh and new to do on Sunday.”
-David Braha, 8th grade
“We loved Sunday Mania! Glitzy Gilrz rocked! We also enjoyed making the seder plates and Mr. Z was awesome!”
-Marielle Dabbah, Bridgette Marcus and Sheila Matut, 6th grade
“I didn’t want Sunday Mania to end. Dan did the coolest things!”
-Isaac Schweky, 4th grade
“My daughter literally counted down the days till Sunday. She loved it so much!”
-Joey Mizrahi, Kindergarten and 4th grade parent.
