Union Y celebrates its staff’s ‘dedication’

Longtime employees of the YM-YWHA of Union County were honored on June 11 at the organization’s annual meeting.

While celebrating the past year’s accomplishments and welcoming a new president, the meeting was also an opportunity to recognize Bill Goldfischer, Barbara Pritasch, Betty Rosman, Hugo Sanchez, and Ghislaine Francois for their combined 134 years of service to the community center in Union.

Pritasch and Rosman have been on staff for 30 years, Sanchez and Francois for 25.

Goldfischer, 90, head of food services for 24 years, received the 2013 Abraham Izak President’s Award.

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In presenting the award, outgoing president RoAnna Pascher described Goldfischer as someone “who treats every dollar spent at the Y as if it were his own.”

In her remarks, Pascher recalled how the Y provided a haven for those affected by Superstorm Sandy last fall. Thanks to its leaders’ “fiscal responsibility,” she said, the Y is a “warm place to gather, eat, and have companionship” and “an assured presence in the midst of the recession.”

The Y is an agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, and the merger that formed that federation last year, Pascher said, has also made the Y “truly part of a greater community.”

Incoming president Benjamin Veit of Hillside is a recently widowed father of three, with one son who has special needs. Those responsibilities, he said, initially made him wary to take on the presidency.

“But I made a commitment many years ago to step up,” he said. “I am inspired by the dedication of the people at the Y.”