Friendship Campus a groundbreaking effort
by Kevin Cody “If you want to light a candle, if you want to inspire other people, first you need to be a candle yourself,” Rabbi Yossi Mintz is fond of saying, even when he is unabashedly that candle. Last Wednesday, Rabbi Mintz shared that advice with the more than 1,000 people attending the Friendship Campus groundbreaking last Wednesday. The private school, on Inglewood Avenue in Redondo Beach, will offer vocational training for special needs students. Groundbreaking guests included Skechers CEO Michael Greenberg, Toibb Real Estate CEO Harris Toibb, Schwartz Capital CEO Ted Schwartz, and Gensler Architecture co-CEO Andy Cohen. Those five donors, alone, contributed over half of the $36 million initially budgeted for the Friendship Campus. The budget has since increased to $55 million. Of that, $42.5 million has been raised, well past the 50 percent threshold conventionally raised before construction begins. The five legacy donors, all Manhattan Beach residents, all traced their support of the Friendship Campus to a personal interest in special needs kids, sparked by Rabbi Mintz’s vision. The Jewish Community Center Chabad rabbi “touched my soul,” as Greenberg put it, in 1996…
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