DAMOJO Spotlight: The Center - Louis Jerome

Hello everybody. August 24th, 2025. We're at the home of Esther and Joey Jerome here in Deal, New Jersey. I have the privilege of sitting today with my good friend, my cousin actually, Lewis Jerome, currently the president of the Sphartic Center. We here at the annual, the sixth annual center court tennis tournament. And uh it hopes to be a beautiful day as it usually is. Many events have taken place in this home, especially for the Sphartic Center. Uh to say it lightly, the Sphartic Center has been obviously has had a tremendous impact on the community, but it's also part of the fabrication of the uh Jerome and Bailey families. Lewis, you're now the current president. You're following the lead of the chairman, your esteemed grandfather, Mr. Mars Bailey, and of course, your father, Joe Jerome. How does it feel to assume such a role? >> First off, I'm deeply inspired by my father and and my grandfather. And I think the biggest lesson that I've taken out is that the community is like one large family. The best part about the center is that every barrier of division sort of falls when people walk into the into the building. We're one family. We're one community. And to me as president to see the togetherness that we have as a community, it's it really is so special. It's really what makes us so unique. A few years ago, I had the privilege of working with the center on their marketing campaign and we came up with a catchphrase that couldn't be more true. You can have many synagogues in the community. You could have many Yeshivot. But in the end of the day, we're one community with one center in Brooklyn, New York. How does that how do you plan on carrying that into the future and maintaining that? >> I I'll tell you what the most beautiful thing is for me also. When you see the children who come into the center, you'll see that they come from different schools within the community. that come from every school in the community, which I find so beautiful that they all come together and they build friendships and childhoods with people who go to different schools and maybe are in different observant levels than than they are, but we're one community and it's nice to know that we could be proactive in um in doing what brings us together. Too often, I think that we're reminded of who we are as a people, that we're one people by our enemies. And here we take the positive step to say, "No, we're we're one community." And you see that uh exemplified really by what the center does in programs. >> Excellent. If you were to describe briefly, how has the center impacted our community in the last 40 plus years? >> I think the most unique thing about our community is our togetherness and our unity. And there is nothing that exemplifies that more than the Safari Community Center. what we do, the people we bring together, and just the the open arms nature of the center. It's so beautiful and I think if you really want to know what makes our community different and unique, come to the center. >> You now took on the presidency about a year ago. Give me a little glimpse towards the future. What exciting uh projects, what exciting expansion should we expect? What can you slip out to the public right now? >> So, what we'd like to do is make the actual building itself a place that you want to come to and stay, right? So we want for example to build a place for our young adults to come our our uh our fifth sixth graders to to have a place to stay. Um we want um when the women come for exercise for a reason for them to you know socialize together with their friends. Um we want people to really stay together in the center and so we're going to have to you know do a few things. I don't want to get too too much into it but we got exciting things that are going to achieve that goal. One of the things that we are trying to do is bring really good speakers and programming to the center. Um, as you know, this past summer we had uh Rachel and John Goldberg polling come. We had um expected maybe 400 people. We ended up getting close to 900 people. And um it was inspiring. It was uplifting programs like that that sort of redirect you into what's really important in life. Um those are the types of programs that we want to continue to to build in the center. So, um, you know, we want to touch people in in in in good ways, um, and, um, uplift them and inspire them. And, you know, that's some of the things that we want to do as we move into the next year. We want to continue to inspire people. We want them to grab on to hope. We want them to look optimistically at the future. And we want us to do that together as one community. >> Anyway, I'm a proud member of the center for many years. I'm probably using it my whole life. I'm there a couple times a week doing my thing. And I want to thank you personally and I'm sure I speak on behalf of most of the community. Thank you and your family for all your hard work you put in and we're very excited to see what the future brings. Excellent.