An amazing thing happened to the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis (JCRC) team at last week’s GIVE STL trivia event at The Armory. They won and won big!

“The Nonprofit Night at the Armory” gathered some 600 people from around the St. Louis nonprofit world to help kick off this year’s Give STL Day, on Friday, May 10. Give STL Day is a program sponsored and run by the St. Louis Community Foundation.

The JCRC has participated in the annual fundraising event for three years and was raising money to support its Student To Student program. The JCRC delegation made up of Joel and Joanne Iskiwitch, David Rosenstock, and Cheryl Adelstein were in attendance, hoping to kick off the fundraising effort with a bang.

“The event was a wonderful way to meet people from a wide variety of nonprofits and to let them know about the work that the JCRC does,” said Joanne Iskiwitch.

Getting down to business

Of course, the business of the night was all in fun. The trivia contest consisted of 20 multiple-choice questions, presented and answered on mobile phones. Each team had 60 seconds to answer each question correctly. The faster you responded, the more points you earned.

“The competition was fierce since some groups had many participants. The questions were not the usual ones asked at a trivia night – they delved into obscure historical events,” said Joel Iskiwitch, Board Chair of the JCRC.

“Around question 15, we realized we were in the mix to win a prize and it got very real,” said Cheryl Adelstein, the former Interim Executive Director of the JCRC. “With over 400 competitors, it was great fun to see we were in second place heading into the final round.”

After the 20th and final question, the team learned they correctly answered 19 for a total of 1,778 points, more than 50 points ahead of the second-place team.

“It was great fun to win, and more fun to know that the grand prize of $3,500 was being awarded to the Jewish Community Relations Council,” said Adelstein.

Winning is good

“Winning first place was thrilling. The hundreds of people who were in attendance now have heard about the JCRC,” said Joanne Iskiwitch. “We are so happy that we could contribute the substantial first-place prize to be used toward all of the great work that the JCRC does for our St. Louis community.”

In addition to the $3,500 earned from winning the trivia contest, the JCRC raised $1,226 from 18 donors on Friday. The Student to Student program of the Newmark Institute costs nearly $75,000 annually and program fees and grants cover only 30% of the operating costs. Click here to learn more about the program.