Leigh (Nicolet '17) said that graduating from Bader Hillel Academy in a class of 8 students, she was challenged to adjust to a class almost 50 times larger. “I really struggled at the start of high school,” she said. “I felt like I didn’t fit in…I couldn’t find myself anywhere else.” She learned about CTeen through the Shul and Camp Gan Israel, and CTeen “helped me find my group of people, where I could be myself, where I felt my identity.”
Leigh was deeply involved in the advocacy effort to get a Sukkah built at Nicolet, leading to both the 2015 JLI Teen of the Year award and the relationship with Nicolet’s neighbor that eventually became the CTeen House. She attended many shabbatons and served as CTeen president her junior and senior year. After a 6-month gap program in Israel, she discovered a similarly unfamiliar situation in college at Minnesota, but her deep connection with Rabbi Avremi led her to flourish at Chabad on Campus, where she served as vice president of the student board for her junior and senior years. She was grateful for “the times where I needed him and he dropped it to show up.”
Leigh went on to earn a Masters degree in Nonprofit Management at Arizona State. Currently, she lives in Crown Heights, New York, working as a Development Associate for the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, “supporting donors who help advance the values and interests of the Jewish community.” She is a founding member of the CTeen Mentors Network, providing guidance and support to current CTeens on Jewish campus life, professional networking, and more.
