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Month: September 2026

Why We Walk for Sunrise – And Why You Should, Too

Posted on by Erica Silverstein

On Sunday, October 18, many of us will lace up our sneakers, drive out to National Harbor, and join a community of people dedicated to supporting Sunrise Day Camp—Greater Washington at the annual SunriseWALKS event. We walk to help fund this summer camp that is offered free to the families—bringing joy and connection to children with cancer and their siblings. 

The dedicated folks who show up for SunriseWALKS might be unified in their goals, but their journeys to this moment took many paths. If you’re wondering why you might want to support one of the J’s most impactful programs, listen to some of Sunrise’s biggest supporters share why they walk. 

Jose Corro, Sunrise parent 

Jose walks because he knows firsthand what it’s like to have cancer disrupt a family’s life. His oldest son is a cancer survivor, and both of his boys are Sunrise campers.  

Jose has been attending SunriseWALKS with his wife and two kids since 2023. “It’s honestly become one of our favorite family traditions,” he says. “Walking alongside other cancer fighters and their families makes us feel so supported and empowered. Looking around and seeing so many people showing up for our community reminds us that we’re never in this alone.” 

Even though a busy family life makes fundraising difficult, Jose supports SunriseWALKS so the camp can continue to make life better for families like his. 

Dale Bare, Sunrise Board Member 

Dale Bare will attend her fourth SunriseWALKS this year and credits her dedication to pediatric cancer patients to two significant events in her life. The first is when the son of neighborhood friends developed brain cancer at a young age and ultimately passed away when treatment failed. “I hoped from that time on that, one day, I would be able to make a difference for other children like my neighbor,” she said. 

The second was when her own son had to undergo open heart surgery at the age of 14. When she visited him in the pediatric cardiology unit, she would pass by the kids in the oncology ward. While she knew her son would recover from surgery, she “would think about these children in the oncology unit and wonder what life had in store for them as well as their families.” She wished she could do something to make a difference in their lives. 

When she and her husband formed a company, BARE International, they chose Sunrise as the charitable organization their company would support and have sponsored SunriseWALKS the past three years. Dale uses her position to encourage participation among her employees, offering prizes to the biggest fundraisers for Sunrise in her organization. 

Alexis Kirgan, Sunrise on Wheels Volunteer 

Alexis is excited about her very first SunriseWALKS event this year. She’s a volunteer for Sunrise on Wheels, a year-round program that brings the Sunrise magic, in the form of games and crafts, to kids undergoing treatment in the pediatric oncology units of Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., and Inova L. J. Murphy Children’s Hospital in Falls Church, VA. 

“I have seen firsthand how much of an impact these types of camps have on the kids, giving them a chance to be a kid and take a break from the harder parts of their lives,” Alexis says. “They are able to play, make friends, and make memories that they can hopefully look back on when things get hard.” 

Alexis’s fundraising strategy is to set aside money every time she gets paid to be used to donate to a good cause—in this case, SunriseWALKS. 

Sophia Bartrum and Bradley Olson, co-founders of the GMU Sunrise Club 

Sophia and Bradley are Sunrise Day Camp counselors who co-founded the Sunrise Club at George Mason University to help raise money and awareness for the program.  

Supporting pediatric cancer patients is a cause dear to Sophia’s heart. “I have had a lot of very important people in my life affected by pediatric cancer, including my twin sister who had Wilms tumor,” she says. “I really wish that she and I were able to attend Sunrise when we were younger, as I have seen firsthand the incredible impact that Sunrise Day Camp has on kids with pediatric cancer and their siblings.” 

Bradley fought his own battle with pediatric cancer but was too sick to attend Sunrise Day Camp. Once in remission, he finally had the chance to come to camp—as a counselor. 

“Having the opportunity to be a part of this community and provide a reprieve from the everyday battle that is cancer has not only had a tremendous impact on my personal healing journey, but has also been the most fulfilling experience of my life,” he says. “This camp has an incalculable impact, as anyone who has been fortunate to enough to be a part of it knows.” 

The GMU Sunrise Club has already raised more than $2,500 for SunriseWALKS through campus tabling events, social media, and presentations in classes. The group has also approached local businesses to ask if they’d make a donation.  

“It’s been a good way to build a community of people who all want to raise money and awareness for an amazing cause,” she says.  

What’s your Sunrise story? 

You, too, can be a part of the Sunrise family and help give kids with cancer and their siblings a summer to remember. Form a team, raise money, donate, volunteer, or show up on October 18 and walk so that these kids can soar. 

Join us: https://sunrise-walks.org/GreaterWashington 

In Conversation: Julie Wohl, Artist, Author, and Founder of Jewish Arts Community, The Studio

Posted on by Sarah Berry

Exhibit: Sacred and Ordinary… Joyful Works from Jewish Tradition and Everyday Life  
By Julie Wohl 
In the Bodzin Art Gallery through October 19, 2026 

Julie Wohl wears many hats. As an artist, her work features motifs that showcase her inner life and musings as she grapples with 2,000 years of Jewish history and culture. Julie’s vibrant mixed media works include paint, collage, and fiber art dolls, all boldly demonstrating her love of Judaism and storytelling.  

Julie also loves teaching and currently serves as the Director of Congregational Learning at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation. She’s also the founder of The Studio, a Jewish text-based community art studio that meets monthly. Julie is accomplished at facilitating artmaking for both skilled artists and those who have no arts experience at all.  

I encourage everyone to meet this fun artist and make your own mixed-media creation at the J on Tuesday, October 13, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm, for Make, Create, Celebrate: A High Holiday Mixed Media Art Workshop led by Julie Wohl.  

Here, Julie shares some insights into her art and inspiration. 

When did you start making art and what keeps you going? Has Judaism always inspired your work? 

I have always made art in one form or another. My mother and grandmother were both artists, and art supplies were always around in my house. I filled sketchbooks, doodled on the sides of my math homework, and painted the walls of my bedroom. Basically, I made art any chance I could, on whatever surface was available.  

I formally got into painting at a summer program when I was 16 and that has been my primary medium ever since. Judaism was a later addition to my practice. Starting in college, I remember being moved by Debbie Friedman songs and wanting to paint the ideas. I went to graduate school for Jewish education, and I was very interested in connecting the ideas and spirit of the tradition with my work as an educator and an artist, though I did not fully know how that would manifest.  

By the time I started working full time in Jewish education, I was creating my own work as well as running workshops and seminars in which my art and my Jewish expression were inextricably intwined.    

You work across media, such as painting, digital illustration, and soft sculpture. How do you decide what to make with which materials? 

I think of myself primarily as a painter, and all of my work – including the soft sculpture and the digital illustration – include painting or painting style as a major component. I taught myself to sew on my mom’s old sewing machine just so I could have different shaped surfaces on which to paint. I love to work large and painting is, at least for me, the best way to do that.   

When I wanted to delve into book illustration, one of the biggest learning curves for me was creating the same image, or character, over and over again. My style is very loose and intuitive, which is great for painting, but does not work so well if you need to be consistent.  

That is why I taught myself to work in Procreate on the iPad. It allowed me to work much faster, to play with layers in a different way, and to eventually, with a lot of practice and a steeper learning curve than I expected, be more consistent. I find digital illustration to be faster and more efficient for creating usable resources, including book illustrations, posters, and graphics.   

The soft sculpture art dolls are a departure for me since I have always worked primarily in two dimensions. I find that sewing and working with fabric, yarn, thread, and other materials brings me to a totally different mental space than painting on canvas or drawing in Procreate. Making the dolls has become an almost therapeutic experience for me.  

I also really like that in an age of artificial everything, the physical act of sewing, stuffing, painting, and constructing feels countercultural and grounding. Plus, I’m still learning this medium, so every final piece is a bit of a surprise, which is stimulating for me as a creator.     

You’re a published author and illustrator. Tell us more about your book, “Make, Create, Celebrate: Jewish Holidays Through Art.” Did putting words to your process as you wrote your book inform your craft at all? 

“Make, Create, Celebrate: Jewish Holidays Through Art” is part art journal and part Jewish holiday resource book. In it, we explore the Jewish year through the arts—both by looking at and thinking about visual art and creating art through various media and modalities. I wrote it after having done Jewish artmaking workshops for about a decade, so in many ways it was putting into words the work that I had been already doing. 

I have found throughout the years of teaching my workshops that I will often push myself to come up with a new way of doing something, or I will try to find a different medium that I think will appeal to a broader audience. Those ideas will often find their way into my own work. Some examples of this are watercolor resist, Gelli printing, and collage making—all of which I taught myself because I thought they would be interesting to my students. In the end, they became things that I fell in love with and regularly incorporate into my own art.    

What advice do you have for aspiring artists? 

My biggest piece of advice for aspiring artists is to just make art. Do it. Do it badly. Do it when you think you have no time for it. You don’t have to be good at it, you don’t have to want to make money off it, and you don’t have to invest huge amounts of money into it. You don’t even have to post it on social media!   

If you have paper and a pen or pencil, or maybe some markers and a glue stick, you can draw, doodle, rip, or cut. Just do whatever comes to you, and try as hard as you can not to judge yourself while you are doing it.  

It is a very human thing to make art. Just like you don’t have to aspire to be a famous athlete to go to the gym, you don’t have to “be an artist” to make art. You are allowed to do it just because it feels good, and you are allowed to throw it out or repurpose it if you don’t like how it turns out. The only thing I suggest you do is just make art.