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What's Happening MoCo?
An authentic, unscripted update from County Cable Montgomery highlighting items that help residents of Montgomery County. This program features interviews with elected officials, employees, public servants, and residents. It is produced by the Office of Community Engagement from the Department of Technology and Enterprise Business Services. Interviews are recorded live and presented with very few edits to ensure the integrity and authenticity of the conversations.
What's Happening MoCo?
What's Happening Around the Bender... JCC
Nestled in the heart of Rockville, Maryland lies a community treasure that many Montgomery County residents might be surprised to discover is open to everyone. The Bender JCC of Greater Washington isn't just a fitness center or cultural hub—it's a 119,000-square-foot community crossroads where diversity thrives and inclusion isn't just talked about, it's lived daily.
CEO Joshua Bender (coincidentally sharing the name with the center's benefactors) paints a vivid picture of what makes this space special: "If you stand in our lobby long enough, you'll hear 12, 15 languages throughout the day."
Visit benderjccgw.org to learn more about how you can become part of this vibrant community hub that's been serving the region since 1969.
This episode also includes excerpts from interviews recorded during National Bring Your Child to Work Day at Montgomery County Government.
Good day and welcome to what's Happening MoCo, an authentic unscripted podcast from your Montgomery County government. Now here's your host, derek Kenney.
Speaker 2:Good day and welcome to what's Happening MoCo. Today we're learning about a great resource located right here in Rockville, maryland, the Bender JCC of Greater Washington DC. We'll be talking to Joshua Bender, ceo of JCC, but first we'll take a quick look back at Bring your Child to Work Day National. Bring your Child to Work Day here in Montgomery County, maryland. It's Bring your Kids to Work Day in Montgomery County, maryland, and I'm sitting here with Andrew Akinola, alex Akinola and Nick Akinola, and we're part of TEBS Technology Enterprise Business Solutions. Andrew, how are you today? I'm good, thank you, it's great to be here. All right, and you are the proud father of Alex and Nick. Yes, why is it important to bring your kids to work today? I think it it important to bring your kids to work today.
Speaker 3:I think it's important to bring the kids to work today because it gives them an opportunity to see what work is like, what people do, what their parents do, and it might give them some motivation down the road. Yeah, they might be young, some, you know, some are younger, some are older but it gives them that opportunity to see what work is like Fantastic, fantastic, and in front of me I have Alex.
Speaker 2:Alex, have you had fun today? Did you learn anything? Yeah, what did you learn today?
Speaker 4:Like this place is going to be hooters that control the TVs. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So Alex was able to tour the Technical Operations Center of the Council Office Building and that's where the technicians route all the cable programming to this building and out to Verizon and Xfinity and RCN so people can watch it on the TVs but then also see them live streaming. Alright, so Alex learned about that today, nick. Hey Nick, what did you learn today?
Speaker 5:If I can recall anything, it would probably be like the UPS thing and like the bomb shelter.
Speaker 2:So he's learned that the council office building has security measures in place to help people in extreme situations. Very few people have ever seen the bomb shelter, even though there is a bomb shelter. But now guess what we know. So let's give a round of applause for Andrew, alex and Nick, and with Jason, jack and Felix, felix, all right, all right, so, so, so, jason, what do you do here at the Technology Enterprise Business Solutions? So, jason, what do you do here at the Technology Enterprise Business Solutions.
Speaker 6:I'm a senior IT specialist with public safety. Started with the police, you know, 10 some years ago, the police department and then moved to, you know, finished my cybersecurity degree at Montgomery College and then a wonderful program over there you know 10 years ago but still, I'm sure, great and then moved over to Tebbs quite a few years ago.
Speaker 2:All right, All right. Now, why do you think it's important to bring your kids to work like bring your kids to work day?
Speaker 6:You know it is at least for me, it is good to get them excited about the county in a weird way, and until you're here and you meet the people and work with them, it is, it's good to be around good people, all right, fantastic, fantastic, and it's great to be around these two powerful young men.
Speaker 2:They have all this energy. How old are you guys? Six, you're six. Okay, that's Felix. Felix is six years old. How old are you, jack? Nine, nine, nine years old, wow. And Felix, what do you want to be when you grow up? A vet, a vet? Wow. Why do you want to become a vet? I just want to take care of animals, oh, wow. So there's somebody that takes care of animals when they get sick. Yeah, oh wow. And that's a vet the veterinarian, jason Felix. Jack, thank you for being here today, appreciate you. We're here with Claudia and Lucas Canales Canales Canales. All right, claudia, could you tell us a little bit about what you do with Technology, enterprise, business Solutions?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm an admin specialist for our department and I take care and coordinate events for our department, strategic planning and anything that needs to be done.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Thank you for all that you do. You are highly valued, lucas. Welcome to the show. How old are you, lucas? I'm 18 years old 18 years old, all right and I want to say that Lucas is a valued member of the Tebbs family and a valued member of the what's Happening? Moco family. He actually served last year as an intern. Lucas, what was that experience like for you?
Speaker 4:It was fun. It's really interesting to see like the inner workings of broadcasting and really get to work behind the scenes of doing all of that.
Speaker 2:Let's talk to the proud mom over here. I see the pride on her face is tangible. Guys, you can see it's so beautiful. What does it take to be the mom of a successful young person these days?
Speaker 5:I think in a world that's chaotic, I think it's essential to have a balance in life and have a strong faith and have quality family time. We're big on family time and you give them the skills and the foundation to go into this chaotic world and try to make a difference, a positive difference, and I don't think it was just us. He is also a great kid I've been blessed with two amazing kids and you know it's his hard work that has gotten him to and, obviously, knowing that we'll always support him, no matter what he does, we're his number one cheerleaders.
Speaker 2:All right, cheerleaders are so important and guidance. Fantastic job, mom, and that's what we have here. That's what's happening at MoCo. It's Bring your Kids to Work Day for Technology, enterprise, business Solutions, and we've been talking to Claudia and Lucas and we thank you guys for being here today and we thank the two dads and the four sons and all the people who came here today and all that they learned, and thanks to the county for supporting this Bring your Kids to Work Day. And now we're back in the studio with Joshua Bender. Josh, we've developed a rapport here, so I think you said I could call you Josh, right?
Speaker 5:Absolutely. Is that okay All?
Speaker 2:right Now, josh Bender, you're the CEO of the Greater Washington. Jcc. Bender, jcc, how are you today?
Speaker 4:I'm doing great, derek, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:All right. Now the first question I had for you and I think I asked you earlier, but it's good for everyone else to know your last name is Bender. The organization's name is Bender. Is there some type of relationship relation there, right?
Speaker 4:So it's pure coincidence that I happen to have the same last name as the generous family who dedicated endowed the building a number of years ago the Bender family. They're a wonderful family. No relation as far as I know, I did tell my kids when I first got the job about five years ago, that they put my name on the building and they didn't believe me when they go.
Speaker 2:They're like wow in big letters. It's awesome. Now, the greatest thing about the organization, though, is not necessarily the name. It's all the things that the organization brings in terms of value to the residents of Rockville, maryland and greater Washington DC. But what does the organization do? And, of course, what does JCC stand for? For the Bender organization.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Derek, great question. Thank you again for having me. I mean, the JCC is part of a movement, the Jewish Community Center Association of North America. It's about 170 throughout North America organizations that are affiliated with the JCCA. We're one of them. We're independent, but part of that umbrella. And the JCCA we're one of them, we're independent but part of that umbrella.
Speaker 4:And the question always comes up when some like what is a JCC? And we are so many things. And I think at the center of what we do is in fact, a community. And one of the things I always like to share when I'm talking about the JCC is we are a community that is guided by Jewish values but we're open to everybody. In fact, we serve the diversity of Montgomery County. I often share the story that if you stand in our lobby long enough, you'll hear 12, 15 languages throughout the day.
Speaker 4:We are a health and fitness facility. We have aquatics programming. We are a health and fitness facility. We have aquatics programming, two pools, an indoor and outdoor pool. We have a gymnasium, a performance arts theater, we have a senior lunch program. We have an early childhood program, both for students, but with a parenting center, a grandparenting center, with many organizations who utilize our space for their programs throughout the community. Many nonprofits actually use our spaces, so we have lots of partnerships. At the heart of what we do is we focus on the well-being of the individual and the community through all of our programs.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that's wonderful. Now, how does someone learn more about how to gain access to your organization? Do they walk up, walk down the streets, their website, and what, if any? Is there a fee for certain types of services offered?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a great question and, because of the vast array of programs we do, there are different ways of engaging with our community. If you're looking to work out and focus on your physical well-being, we have a fitness center 40,000 square feet, two pools. One is open. Both are open year-round, including our outdoor pool, which is heated at 82 degrees oh wow, All year long. All year long. So in February, if you walk by, you'll do a double take because there's people swimming laps in the pool.
Speaker 4:And that's one of the signature things we do, and so you do have to be a member of the JCC to utilize those facilities, but we have many programs that are open to the wider community. One of our crown jewels is Lessons Camp JCC. That's our summer camp program.
Speaker 4:We have about 500 campers who come to us in the summer. 20% of them have disabilities and they're fully included in the camp, and so we serve both children really, starting at four years old all the way up to young adults at 21, of all abilities, all backgrounds, all identities, and that's something we're really proud of.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's definitely something to be proud of. Of course you're in the most diverse, one of the most diverse counties in the country, if not maybe the world Montgomery County, maryland and it's great to see that that program is reflective of that. Even you mentioned the lobby with the different languages being spoken being reflective of the diversity of the county. Let's talk a little bit about you as the CEO. What is your role as CEO and what do you find um is prepared you for this role at supporting the Bender JCC?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. You know, one of the exciting things about being the CEO in an organization that's so multifaceted is that every day is different and we basically have many industries under one roof right. We run schools and camps, health and fitness programs, aquatics, arts, culture, you name it, and my background is for many years I was working in education with children. I was a principal in an elementary school many years ago. I worked in camps, particularly in Jewish camps. Growing up became a song leader.
Speaker 2:Continue to this day to take my guitar out and play for our preschoolers when I hold on, you have, you have, you have skill, you have gifts, so you're a song leader. You play the guitar, you're a principal, so do you? Do you find on occasion now a CEO that you need to? You have opportunity to join in and lead a song or two, or I do.
Speaker 4:I often joke that I should walk around all the time holding my guitar and strumming it just to keep everybody calm and happy About. Once a month we do a big family celebration connected to Shabbat. The Sabbath we invite parents and grandparents, all the students in the school I co-lead it with our director of the preschool we sing, we dance and bring a lot of joy to the community. So one of my favorite things to do Incredible.
Speaker 2:I love to see to do that's incredible. I love to see the diversity in someone's background. I understand the education part, but then bringing in the arts, where you can bring in the arts and you bring different skills to help benefit the community that you serve. So I jumped in there and I may have taken you off track.
Speaker 4:Tell us more about your track to becoming the CEO. Yeah, so I think one of the things that really attracted me to this role, in particular many of the roles I had over the years I worked in Jewish organizations that primarily served the Jewish community and they were amazing and wonderful education and Jewish camping and the JCC world is particularly to me compelling because we get to sort of live our Jewish values of inclusiveness and respect, but we get to do it in, as you said, the most diverse county in the country, where we're opening our doors to individuals and families of all backgrounds. To me, that gives me great pleasure and it's an honor to both draw from our Jewish values but also say you're welcome in our space.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's wonderful and what a fantastic space it is. How big is the space? You mentioned two pools. You mentioned a theater space. You mentioned classrooms and educational areas. How big of a facility is this?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a big, large, beautiful facility, about 120,000 square feet, and it keeps us really busy in terms of maintaining and keeping it beautiful and, you know, a space that is inviting to our members, whatever reason they're coming to our facility. And so we're blessed with a great facility and because we have the facility, we're able to open our doors to other organizations and to say to nonprofits in Montgomery County who don't necessarily have space Right now, we have Kind Works in the building who are recruiting volunteers and they're putting together food for the community, and so we get to sort of also play that role in the community where we say come, use our facility, we want to partner with you to strengthen the community.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow. So insert round of applause here for the Bender JCC for being such a great partner for a lot of community organizations. It's one thing being there and being sustainable. You guys have been around for quite some time. When did you first enter into the DC market and what would you compare the size of the building to? Is there another building that's 100,000 square feet so we could get a full grasp of how big that is? That's a good question.
Speaker 4:I mean it's similar, like if you've been to a YMCA facility that you know it's constructed similarly and there's different sizes of the scale. So I have to think about what building it compares to. What I will say is to give you a sense of the scale. So I have to think about what building it compares to. What I will say is to give you a sense of the scale of programming that we can do On a Sunday. We might have eight or 10 different programs going on in different spaces around the building. As I mentioned, we rent a lot of our spaces at a reduced cost to many of our nonprofits, so we can have corporate retreats and gatherings. There are faith-based organizations that use our space for their programming, and so we can have 1,000 to 2,000 people in the building at one time on a Sunday in particular, which is our busiest day of the week.
Speaker 2:Wow, all right, and earlier I think you may have mentioned it, I don't know if it's in our earlier conversation or this conversation. I think it's worth repeating that you guys aren't fly by night. You've been around for a while. When did you first enter the DC area, and how many years, I guess, is that? And what do you? What do you see as the future of the organization?
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's a great question. We've been located in Rockville and Montrose road 6125 Montrose Road since 1969. Oh wow. And prior to that we had other locations, but 69 for our current location, and the campus was actually built with three Jewish organizations together. So the JCC is one of them, jesa, or Jewish Social Service Agency, is one of the others. They also serve both the Jewish but the greater community. And then there's the Charles E Smith Life Communities, which formerly known as the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington Again another organization that is Jewish in its core values but serves the entire community. So that was the conception Charles E Smith, a philanthropist and developer, had that this would be a collaborative community working together to serve the needs.
Speaker 2:All right, fantastic. So for people that have heard so much about your organization and the resources it provides to everyone in the county not just as members and not just on the Jewish community, but everyone in the county how do people learn more about your organization? Zero like a website, a phone number to call or Absolutely, If you go to benderjccgworg you can
Speaker 4:connect with our website and learn about upcoming events, get membership information. Come for a tour, come visit our spaces. Again, our doors are open. We're welcoming to everybody. Come in and get to know us, and we'd love to get to know anyone who wants to be connected to our community.
Speaker 2:Now, speaking of the website and getting to know you, I did visit the website just doing a little background education for myself, and I noticed a familiar name on the website. It was a video, a YouTube video embedded on your website for Orsman. There was a fantastic story of Orsman Chevrolet, or the owner of Orsman Chevrolet, who happens to have a role in the organization in some way. Tell us a bit about that and how this local legend is affiliated with your organization.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's great. The Orsman family and starting with Benjamin Orsman, they've been connected to our JCC for really generations and their family continues to be connected to us. And in one particular meaningful way. There was an award, a civic achievement award, established over 60 years ago in memory of Benjamin Orsman and every spring we give the Orsman Award to a deserving recipient in the community has done good work for our community and really improved the lives of everyone in the DMV area. That award actually is June 5th. We are actually going to be giving that award out at a spring event at the JCC and we really like to highlight and there are so many civic leaders in our community doing amazing work and we want to amplify that and that's the purpose of this spring event that we do, called Voices of Leadership.
Speaker 2:Voices of Leadership. Voices of Leadership. Very, very interesting. It was interesting to see the story of I'm not sure many, many people. Orsman Chevrolet may have been the first place that someone's bought their cars. They know the inspiring story of Benjamin Orsman, who was a self-made person. He found out that he had a gift for selling cars and then he built this brand in the locally I'm not sure if it's beyond local or regional, but but then gave back and has led all the way up to this Voices of Leadership event. What can you tell us more about the event? Who's going to be at the event you mentioned, I think? Who's going to be honored? But tell us more about the event and what it's done over the years. What is it? Why is it significant?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the event has been around for many years our spring event and it focuses on I mentioned earlier that inclusion is really important to our community and one of the ways we define that is making sure that our community is financially accessible to individuals who want to be connected to us. So this event actually raises money for scholarship and financial aid for anyone who wants to be connected to the JCC, whether it's in our school, in our camp. They want to work out at the JCC, participate in other programs. This event is aimed at raising dollars so that if someone comes to us and they have some financial needs, we can actually assist to make sure that they can be connected. The event itself has gone through a number of iterations. Recently we rebranded it with the name Voices of Leadership, and at the heart of it is focusing on transformational leadership, and so last year we kind of did our debut event. We brought in David Rubenstein, the new owner of the Orioles of course.
Speaker 4:And Ambassador Stuart Eisenstadt, who's former ambassador of NATO, I believe for a fireside chat, and that was we were amplifying.
Speaker 4:they worked together in the Carter administration and have a long history together and they were our featured guests last year and we gave the award out, of course, the Orsman Award.
Speaker 4:This year we're bringing in it's a little bit of a different angle. We're bringing in Lior Raz, who is the writer and lead actor in Fauda, the Netflix series that's really popular right now, which really explores the Arab-Israeli conflict, which right now, of course, is a an issue we see in the news every day. We're bringing in Dana Bash from CNN. She's coming in to sort of interview Lior and through this program, what we're trying to examine is what does it mean to be a leader, in this case Lior leading the conversation in Hollywood around this very complicated issue that's facing the Middle East right now? And so really they both have interesting backgrounds and the conversation will be wonderful. And then, of course, attached to the evening is giving out the award to this year's Orsman recipient, which this year is Stuart and Ellenen lessons. Um, you probably heard a few moments ago lessons camp jcc. They are, um very involved philanthropists in our community and involved not only in donating funds but actually being involved in our community oh, wow and um.
Speaker 4:we're honoring them um for all of the support they've given our community and one thing in particular that Stuart Lessons said to us a few years ago about our camp. Lessons Camp JCC, which was. He noticed how we serve the entire community children of all backgrounds, all abilities and he saw our camp as a real bridge builder in the community, bringing together people of different communities in this embracing, nurturing camp environment and he saw that as hope for the future. So we're looking forward to honoring them.
Speaker 2:I think it's phenomenal that you're not just talking about diversity of cultures, languages, but also ability levels, because you mentioned that I think 20% of the kids are disabled or have different levels of ability that you may not usually associate with a camp of that size.
Speaker 4:That's right. In fact, some of the campers that come to lessons camp JCC wouldn't otherwise go to camp because the level of needs that they have. We provide full-time nursing, social workers and in many cases one-on-ones. For the campers and the families with children with disabilities pay exactly the same as any other camper and we fundraise towards that.
Speaker 2:Wow, and so the camp is that like a reduced cost camp, or is it a free camp, or how?
Speaker 4:is it? So? It's reduced to the extent that we raise our scholarship dollars every year and the the aspect of the include, the inclusion aspect, is highly subsidized, right, even though a child, teen or young adult with a disability will have a one-on-one and a lot of extra support in order to ensure they're successful in camp, we don't charge them for that.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, that's amazing. And one thing we do number one, of course, round of applause for the inclusiveness and all the additional support, and we talk about the appreciation of lower costs and free and all those things, but we don't often talk about the work and the fundraising that goes into providing those environments and those resources to, the fundraising that goes into providing those environments and those resources to the communities that you serve. So it's very good that you guys are doing that. It's great that we're able to hear more about not only the services but then how you guys are generating revenue to help to support that. So what are some of the things you see on the horizon for the JCC of Greater Washington? What do we see on the horizon for the Rockville community? Or what's coming up this summer? What are some of the seasonal things that are happening?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean. What I would say in general is I think, with the volatility of the world and the polarization that we see in society, I think our JCC is becoming even more relevant to people, a place where they can come through our doors, focus on their health, focus on not only their physical well-being but really their social, emotional well-being in our community, hopefully set aside the noise of the outside world and really just connect with other human beings. We're seeing that as the rate of mental health issues increases in society, we are really leaning into the well-being aspect of what we do and we've always been a place where you can come and work out. But we are kind of rolling out a new framework that's going to help us think about the JCC in the future, where, if someone comes into our facility, our community center, to work out, what can we do to also help them in other domains of well-being. For example, we hear all the time people come in to work out at the JCC but then they connect with a friend and they form a friendship for life.
Speaker 2:Oh wow.
Speaker 4:And so when you start thinking about all the various ways that we could improve the lives of individuals and families, for us, we're leaning into that. We're saying what can we do to make sure that everyone who comes through the door understands all the ways that they can bring meaning to their life and focus on wellbeing, that's spiritual wellbeing, cultural wellbeing and, of course, the social, emotional aspect. And so our board and our staff are really excited about the future because we see the growth in our community and we see the needs that are out there, and we're here to respond.
Speaker 2:All right, that's great. So we've talked about some of the more serious things about the Bender JCC. There's probably a question looming out there for people like myself and others Is there pickleball? Is there pickleball? Is there pickleball? There definitely is pickleball.
Speaker 4:And I will say about two years ago and I used to be the person that played tennis and would go to the tennis court and somebody was on with playing pickleball and I'd be annoyed, Not anymore.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you why Because pickleball is, it's on fire.
Speaker 4:Okay, and so about two years ago, one of the members of our health and fitness team went out and got training on you know how to teach pickleball, and we started adding a program here and there. Well, fast forward two years. It's like wall to wall, all ages. We have people in their twenties playing, we have people in their eighties playing and we, I think we even have a 90 some year old who plays regularly in pickleball.
Speaker 5:And we have drop in something year old.
Speaker 4:Okay, yeah, in fact that's one of my inspirations is to see the members of our community who are thriving. We actually I was telling you before we jumped on we just celebrated 102nd birthday in our senior lunch program, right, and this is someone who's coming on a weekly basis to our community.
Speaker 4:It's their life. It's where their friends are and they look forward to it, and so to be able to do that. But pickleball it is. We don't have enough space. I mean it's full. So we're going to probably be adding space for pickleball at some point, do you?
Speaker 2:play? Oh yeah, I do, I do play. I have a, have a little racket in the trunk. Am I good? No, I'm not good and I will say I've fallen a few times playing pickleball. But great fun, great fun. I played recently with a few of my colleagues. Great way to go out and have some camaraderie, stay active even. And I think what's great about it is that the barrier to entry is does not require a lot of physical acumen, like you could be a big guy like myself and not necessarily in the best, um, cardiovascular condition, but you can still get out there and gain some benefit from pickleball and be relatively competitive, uh, and and then burn calories, I mean because you're moving quite a bit.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, it's quite a bit. It's more of a workout than you.
Speaker 2:And your eyes and like your mind, is moving quickly because the ball is going all over the place. This is it's amazing. I thought it was one of the the greatest introductions of sport in this long time Innovations of sport. I'm not sure how long it's been around, but I love it and I think it's accessible for people of all ages and sizes and fitness levels. That's great. Now I have another serious question for you. That's a serious question. Back to the serious stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so, when you're, when you're, when you're not in full role of CEO, when you're hungry and you're looking at lunch in Montgomery County, what are some of the places you like to go to go eat? What do you like to have for lunch?
Speaker 4:have for lunch? What? What is the ceo of bender jcc greater washington dc. Like to eat? Yeah, I mean, I would like to be able to tell you that I'm I have a really interesting lunch menu during my weeks, but my my staff jokes with me because we're located next to panera all right, which is adjacent to our facility and it's very walkable, so they kind of know my first name there.
Speaker 4:When they see me they're like are you getting the same thing today? You know, so I, I actually live in Olney, even though I work in Rockville, and so I would say there's a lot, a lot of great food in Olney that my family have have eaten. And what I would say is I am because I started my job during the pandemic. For the first couple of years I hardly got out of the building, it felt like. And now that I'm almost five years I'm just really beginning to explore the County. And just the other day I was like oh, where did this come from? I've never been here before.
Speaker 4:I think Pike and Rose took me like two years to discover it even though it was like two minutes away because so I'm getting out there and I love actually Montgomery County. I'm just a big fan moving from Baltimore County, which was also awesome, very different but very different, Just just not as good as Montgomery County.
Speaker 2:I understand yes.
Speaker 4:And there's more places to food, many more places to eat.
Speaker 2:Montgomery County oh yeah, oh yeah, and so different, different areas too. You have the Rio, you have Pike and Rose and even if you're just walking, like if going down a three 55, you find so many beautiful smaller restaurants with great cuisine, made with a lot of love and a lot of flavor, of different types of flavors, so you don't have to worry about getting tired of having Indian or Thai food or Ethiopian. It's all right there here in the county and available to us, just like the Bender JCC is available to residents of Montgomery County, maryland. So thank you, of course, for being here and tell us one last parting message from the CEO of Bender JCC.
Speaker 4:Greater Washington DC or anything else you'd like to share. Yeah, what I would say is we, we like to get word out to the community that we exist, and I think because Montgomery County is is such a robust community, you can literally be living around the corner from the Bender JCC and not know.
Speaker 4:we exist or think you have to be Jewish to be part of it. So what, I want to just sort of open invitation to the community. If you're looking to focus on whether it's your, your physical health, and you want to do a group exercise class, we have 40 every week of all different kinds. You want a personal trainer? You want to. You're new to Montgomery County and you're looking just to connect in community and meet people. Whatever age you are, you have children, you're an adult come check us out and we have an open door policy and we love to meet new people and welcome them to the community, whether they become a member of the JCC or not. That's why we exist.
Speaker 2:So Whoa, and that's what's happening. Moco open doors Montgomery County. The doors are open for you, bender, jcc, great Washington DC. Thank you so much, mr Bender, or, as we like to call him, josh. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 4:Thanks, Derek thanks for having me. This has been a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:it's been a great, great amount of fun and, as always, we ask people out there to ask the question what's happening, moco, moco? We'd love to give you the answers. Be sure to subscribe, like and share, and feel free to meet us this year at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fairgrounds in August, the 9th day of the summer.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to what's Happening MoCo. Please subscribe via your favorite podcasting platform and follow us on Facebook. This podcast is brought to you by County Cable Montgomery, your source for news and information from the Montgomery County Government. Connect with us via cable, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube by searching for County Cable MoCo.