Lois Kemp retires from the JCC of Bridgewater after 33 years of service

By Cheryl Orson
Nov. 23, 2007

After 33 years of dedicated service to the Jewish Community Center of Bridgewater, Lois Kemp, often known as "Miss JCC," has recently retired.

Having served in every conceivable capacity to the JCC, even before there was a JCC building, Kemp's loss is already being felt.

"What didn't Lois do?" wondered JCC Marketing/Public Relations Director Debbie Golden about Kemp. "She knew every detail, got involved in everything, and was an integral part of our staff. We miss her and love her."

JCC Executive Director Susan Ferbank echoed these same thoughts on Kemp's retirement.

"She was integral to the JCC operation and beginning of the JCC," said Ferbank noting Kemp's predating the JCC building. "She will be sorely missed by the membership, staff and leadership."

Kemp's association with the JCC began in the 1970s when she sent her daughter, Sarah, to nursery school when the organization was located on Park Avenue in Somerville. Kemp, a teacher by trade, started substituting.

As time went on, Kemp took on more responsibilities. "The next thing you know," as Kemp tells it, she was helping with lunch, teaching afternoon classes, and "working my way up," though that hadn't been the original intention.

Sometime during the early 1980s, the JCC had to move out of its Park Avenue site and made a deal to rent space at the Somerville YMCA. There, the JCC itself began to experience more changes with its executive director passing away and the Jewish Federation of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties moving into the area. It was decided to combine the two entities into a Federation JCC. Kemp, meanwhile, taught classes in the morning and worked as a secretary in the afternoon.

In the 1980s, they moved to the People Care Center. The nursery school staff was cut, so Kemp became a secretary full-time.

"Everybody did what they could to make the whole thing work," said Kemp, noting that she went from one project to another.

Then nursery school director left and it was "Lois, can you supervise this?" Kemp said. After they closed the nursery school it was "Lois, make sure you sell off the equipment," which she did including "schlepping" some of the leftover goods to summer camp in the family car with the help of husband and kids.

Then it was decided to bring trailers on-site to the summer camp, so Lois brought in some trailers and set them up to code to what the township wanted; became the summer camp liaison, making sure counselors, including her teenage daughter, were on-site and that activities were going smoothly; and worked with all camp directors and did all the other prep work during the winter.

Then the Federation JCC offices moved to Route 22. And Lois had to make sure the office was packed and moved. She even hired the movers and packed and labeled boxes.

Sometime after this move, in the summer of 1999, the executive boards of the Federation and JCC once again split and went their own separate ways.

By December of 1999, the JCC moved into its new building, owned by the Federation, in Bridgewater. But everything for the Federation still "went through Lois" including establishing databases and running the Super Sunday events. However, in its new home the JCC staff grew significantly, and Kemp became the membership and programming director as well as it database operator and a key administrative assistant taking on more and more responsibility for the JCC's computers and vital information.

"Everybody says you'll know when it's time," Kemp said about retiring, noting that the idea was beginning to dawn on her since her husband had already been retired for a year. "There were things we wanted to do and I didn't want such a large job any more."

Looking back on her time with the JCC, Kemp said, "it was interesting to say the least," adding, "when you have a job you just do it."

"I always felt part of a much larger family. I still do," Kemp said. "You not only have a position at the JCC but are part of that extended family. Everybody's there for each other."

Thought Kemp said she "totally enjoyed" herself at the JCC she now has other obligations. Her daughter, Sarah, who married a fellow summer camp counselor, Mark, and lives in Hillsborough now has "three little campers of her own," Samantha, 11, Jake, 9, and Marissa, 4. And son, Richard, and his wife, Jackie, of Morris Plains have their own happy camper, Josh, 2.

"They keep us busy too," Kemp said, adding that the calls come on a regular basis and "now I get to enjoy some of this too."

Of her fellow JCCers Kemp said, "They've been wonderful to me and I feel totally appreciated. They left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling about the whole experience," and that "hopefully someone else learned from me."

"I never anticipated being there all this time," she said.

Kemp said it's been a privilege, especially seeing her daughter become the JCC's receptionist and camp register herself.

"It's definitely been a good experience."

Her fellow JCCers will also miss Kemp, who has been the unofficial "Miss JCC" for more than three decades.

"She is an incredibly valuable person who watched the community grow and was in a strategic position for an operation like this," Ferbank said, adding while Kemp's retirement is a joyous occasion, it is a "mixed bag" for the JCC. "It will be impossible for us to fill her shoes."