Jewish Life Digital Edition September 2015 | Page 80

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45 years of giving
The Selwyn Segal Gift Shop: helping the
Jewish community to give I By Chandrea Serebro

76 JEWISH LIFE n ISSUE 88

Not for a minute did I dream that the shop
would grow into the huge enterprise that it is
today, and that I would be working entire days
and sometimes well into the night.
Hashanah last year. And the statistics behind our Rosh Hashanah shop are mindboggling! Our amazing volunteers pack:
750kg of dried fruit; we use 8km of ribbon; 3.5km of wrapping paper; and 4.5km
of cellophane.” That’s a lot of gifts, and a
lot of happy customers.
“The Jewish community has always
supported the gift shop in grand style,”
says Stan Rothbart, who was the chairman of Selwyn Segal for many years, and
this has helped the shop to see substantial growth over the years, including the
launch of its new toy shop, which will sell
lots of brand name items in the shop and
online. It always manages to stay abreast
of the latest fashions, while also maintaining the traditional Jewish gifts and
serving as a wonderful marketplace for
the kosher products produced by the Selwyn Segal.
The gift shop was started by a group of
volunteers as a fundraising project for the
Selwyn Segal home for the mentally challenged. The yom tov shop was founded by
the late Phyllis Rothbart and Zelda Michel,
and run out of different loc ations every

ed volunteers, run the shop, all for the
benefit of the residents of the Selwyn Segal. Joan pays tribute to all of these volunteers and their fabulous staff for their incredibly hard work, passion and commitment, and also to her family for their
amazing support over so many years. “I
am continually inspired by them all and by
the residents, those amazing people who
accept their lot in life without complaint
and are grateful for the smallest kindness.
We are privileged to make a difference in
their lives. How amazing it is to love what
I do and feel that it has significance.”
The philosophy of the gift shop (and indeed, of Joan) is ‘the gift is in the giving’.
They recognise the power that giving has,
not only on the recipient and on the giver, but in this case, on the lives of the residents of the Selwyn Segal as well. And
the lasting impact that both Joan and the
ladies of the Selwyn Segal Gift Shop
would like to make is to continue to inspire others to keep on giving and to continue to help them make a difference in
the lives of those who cannot help themselves. JL

photograph: supplied

About 40 years ago, Joan Block was invited
to work as a volunteer in a gift shop in a
basement of a home in Observatory. A
speech and drama teacher with a successful afternoon studio, Joan wanted to do
something meaningful a couple of mornings a week.
“Giving back to the community was instilled in me, as both my parents were
very involved in community work. Not
for a minute did I dream that the shop
would grow into the huge enterprise that
it is today and that I would be working
entire days and sometimes well into the
night. Nor did I realise that the shop
would become my life.” Joan says this
somewhat poignantly, on the eve of her
40th dedicated year as a volunteer at the
shop, which marks its 45th anniversary
this year.
Having achieved second place for the
best gift shop in The Star Readers Choice
Awards last year, the ladies of the Selwyn
Segal Gift shop are on the map – not that
they needed the outside validation, with
30 000 of their beautifully wrapped,
trendy and quality gifts finding their way
into the hearts of people for just about
any occasion under the sun, including
even corporate gifting.
“I remember my first year in the yom
tov shop packing 1 000 gifts singlehandedly for Rosh Hashanah. That number has
grown, with 10 000 gifts ordered for Rosh

year until finally moving into premises in
the Selwyn Segal Centre itself. The baby
gift shop was initiated by a group of young
married couples who were doing fundraising projects for the Selwyn Segal. Over the
years, as they grew, these different shops
joined forces and moved to the spacious
showroom that they now occupy on the
premises of the Selwyn Segal Centre.
And still, Joan and her co-conveners:
Irene Schraibman – her amazing righthand; Sheryl Rothbart – the backbone of
the organisation; Evette Rosen – whose
passion is the baby shop; Melanie Fox – financial convenor, and the team of dedicat-