Eliana Vizgan moved a lot growing up, but the one constant in her life was the Jewish Community Center.

Today, Vizgan is two months into her new role as the teen engagement and program coordinator at 4Front Baltimore, the JCC of Greater Baltimore’s comprehensive teen initiative.

“The JCC has really been my anchor,” said Vizgan.

Vizgan grew up doing everything JCC. She also attended a Jewish day school, and both a Jewish day camp and sleepaway camp.

Despite her love for the JCC and the Jewish world, she didn’t always think she would become a Jewish professional. Vizgan attended Brandeis University, studying environmental science for her undergraduate degree.

“I really thought I wanted to go into … environmental work but throughout college, I ended up doing all of these Jewish environmental internships,” she said. “Even though I was working in environmental spaces, the common threading was always Jewish professional work.”

During her time as an undergraduate, Vizgan did a farming fellowship through Adamah at Camp Ramah and worked for the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development. Then, after graduating and working for a solar panel installation company, Vizgan saw an opportunity to work at the JCC of Greater Boston and took it.

“I took the job at the JCC of Greater Boston, and I just felt like, ‘This lights me up. This is my home. This feels warm and exciting and vibrant. This is really where my heart is,’” she said.

At the JCC of Greater Boston, Vizgan was able to explore more of what it was like working with teens, interning as a Diller teen fellow and teen engagement intern while pursuing a master’s in Jewish professional leadership from the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University.

After receiving her master’s, Vizgan went on to work for Combined Jewish Philanthropies, the Jewish Federation in Boston. When her partner took a new job, the couple moved to Baltimore. There was an opening at the JCC of Greater Baltimore and Vizgan was happy to take it.

“Being back in a JCC space, some other people might hear the sounds of camp and think, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so loud,’ and I’m like, it’s so comforting to hear all the kids playing,” she said. “I love seeing the kids in the hallway, and I love seeing all the theme days … I love that no two weeks are the same. I love all the vibrancy of the building.”

Working with teens is part of why she loves her work at the JCC.

When Vizgan was a teen, she explained, it was a confusing time and she looked towards the adults in her life for guidance. “I wanted to create that space for other teens as they’re figuring out what it means to be [an] emerging adult and what it means to be Jewish and how their Jewish identity intertwines with their full identity as a human.”

She added, working with teens, “you can be goofy, you can be creative, but you get to really bring your whole authentic self to the table and it’s something that’s really valued [at the JCC].”

Born in Massachusetts, and having lived in Virginia and Connecticut, Vizgan, said she loves living in Pikesville despite only being there a few months.

“We’re shocked at how quickly we’ve gotten settled here,” she said. “It’s just been an extremely, extremely welcoming community … strangers just talk to each other, which is both shocking and very exciting.”

While still shul shopping, Vizgan said she is settling into Baltimore and hopes to become a mentor for those in the 4Front Baltimore program.

“I’m only three weeks in, and everyone’s just been so welcoming and so authentically themselves,” she added. “I feel like I’m in a workplace where people really treat each other with a lot of compassion and I think that’s part of why the programs here do so well.”

mresnicow@midatlanticmedia.com