The last time Dana Posner was featured in the Baltimore Jewish Times was her bat mitzvah announcement. Now 39, Posner lives and breathes JCC.
After graduating from Franklin High School, Posner immediately began working at the JCC. Currently she works as a lead threes teacher and teaches a special area called Farm to Table where she worked all summer for eight weeks, leading children in creating different food products and crafts to be sold at a child-led farmer’s market.
Dana and Josh Posner live in Reisterstown with their three children.
What’s your favorite part about your job?
I really love watching the children start the year with maybe one year of being in a school setting under their belt. Then, at the end of the year, they’re functioning independently and working together, communicating their feelings and their needs and working to solve problems together without the help of a teacher.
What’s something that someone would be surprised to learn about you?
I worked on a food truck for three years. I adopted the chickens that were born in our kindergarten class last year at the JCC. They live at my house. We have four chickens. They’re hens. They were born in an incubator in the kindergarten classroom in the Stoler Early Learning Center last year. They outgrew their home here, and we couldn’t keep them, so I brought them home. We created a beautiful chicken coop environment. They love to free range, and they’re super social. The kids who helped to raise them and their siblings like to see photos, and they ask how the chickens are doing. We have Gus, Spot, Lima and Chickadee. We have learned a lot, and it’s not as bad as one would think. They’re pretty easy and we enjoy their eggs.
How did you get involved in the food trucks?
A friend of mine who owned an organic food truck reached out to me and asked if I was interested in helping out. I was actually transitioning out of the JCC to be a full-time mom and PTA president at my daughter’s school. So, I took a little break from teaching, and I worked on the food truck, and I taught cooking classes. We did a lot of food truck festivals and food truck rallies. I had a few customers that would purchase meal prep from our company, and I would prepare that and coordinate all that.
Was it hard to go back to the JCC?
I think I was ready. I learned a lot about myself on the food truck. There was a lot of growth, and I was put in situations where I would ordinarily feel a little bit anxious or uncomfortable, and I really pushed those boundaries. Coming back here gave me a new sense of how to handle different situations.
Do you see yourself working at the JCC for the foreseeable future?
The JCC has always been my home. It’s where I grew up and it’s where I created my adult career. I will always have a place at the JCC. With every life change that I had from 18 years old to 39 now, the JCC has always been there for me and for my family. My husband and I work out there. We met in the gym, actually, 15 years ago. A lot of people said, because there is a pretty significant age difference between myself and Josh, that it wasn’t going to work out because I was so young and he had a previous marriage and children, and that it would be difficult for me to step into this role being so young. I was 23 years old when I met him, so I feel like we’ve really proved we have a great relationship. We work as a team, and he supports anything and everything that I do.
How did you meet at the gym?
I was 23, and working out was super important to me. I would go to the gym, and he would catch my eye and vice versa. I had heard through the rumor mill that he was very newly separated. It was a friendship for about a year and a half, and we would just flirt and chat at the gym. After everything was said and done with his previous relationship, we moved forward. It became a little bit more serious. Josh and I are pretty sickeningly in love. He’s my best friend. He’s my biggest cheerleader, my biggest supporter. I don’t think I would be as successful if I didn’t have him in my corner.
How would you describe your relationship with Judaism?
I’ve always known that Judaism was a part of me. Honestly, growing up, it was something that I didn’t really talk about much with friends, because growing up in Reisterstown in the 90s, there weren’t very many Jewish people. I definitely didn’t go to school with very many Jewish people. It wasn’t until I started working at the JCC, where I felt like a large sense of that Jewish community, and I wasn’t alone. I embraced it and made celebrating the Jewish holidays a lot more meaningful with my family having that sense of pride. After I had our daughter, I made sure she had a good sense of identity. She came to the JCC preschool, and that was really important to me.
What’s your favorite Jewish holiday?
Rosh Hashanah is one of my favorite holidays, and I have now been dubbed the best brisket-maker ever. I make a very good, very delicious brisket. One of my first holidays I ever hosted, after officially being with Josh and hosting his family was Rosh Hashanah. I’ll never forget, I used my Nana’s china in our home together, and it was super special. I remember dressing the boys up in plaid shirts and it was really warm that year. They were so mad at me because I dressed them in this very handsome young man outfit with pants and dress shoes, and they were so mad. I wanted it to be perfect, and it was, after they took their long shirts off and they just had on their white undershirts on. It wasn’t about the china that I used or the outfits that we wore. Everybody ate great food, had great conversation and it was really meaningful.
