The Ohio Department of Aging inducted retired social worker and current Dayton Jewish Family Services volunteer Connie Blum into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame in Columbus, Sept. 10 for her decades of service in the region. Blum is among 10 older Ohioans inducted to the Hall of Fame this year for lifelong contributions to their communities, professions, and vocations. They join more than 500 who have been inducted to the Hall of Fame since 1977.

Connie retired about 30 years ago from her career as a social worker with the JCC and JFS and became a volunteer Certified Medicare Counselor through the Ohio Senior Health Insurance Information Program (OSHIIP). She’s been volunteering in this capacity for 28 years, helping more than 100 Medicare beneficiaries a year navigate the challenges of understanding Medicare. In 1978, Blum established a daily lunch program for older adults, as well as numerous social, educational, and recreational activities in her position of director of programs and services for seniors at the Dayton JCC.

Last year, Connie was honored by the National Senior Health Insurance Information Program at the U.S. Administration for Community Living Office of Healthcare Information and Counseling national conference. In 2024, she was also named Outstanding SHIP Volunteer. “Whether it’s short phone calls or investing hours over weeks to assist others, Connie’s support during her work with the Ohio OSHIIP knows no bounds,” ODA’s announcement of Connie’s honor noted. And Connie continues on: During Medicare’s annual open enrollment period, Oct. 5 through Dec. 7, she’ll give talks and presentations on Medicare updates to a variety of retiree groups while also counseling numerous individuals.

Peter Benkendorf, founder of The Collaboratory, says the Miami Valley Medical Debt Relief Campaign is at nearly 85% of its $125,250 goal. A project of The Collaboratory, its aim is to eliminate more than $22.75 million in medical debt facing more than 13,000 people in the Miami Valley who earn less than four times the federal poverty level or whose debt is more than 5% of their income. “For every $100 given, we can retire $17,000 in medical debt,” he says. Dayton’s Jewish Family Services is a collaborator on the campaign. ” We have separated the counties to encourage even more localized support to go along with our overall seven-county effort,” Peter says of the campaign’s strategy. “The biggest support has come from Greene County, where a campaign led by the Greene County Democratic Party exceeded its goal by slightly more than $3,000, and Clark County. Their debt of $62,000 accounted for almost 50% of the total goal, as community leaders, foundations, and some very generous individual philanthropists stepped up big-time.”

Through Nov. 2, works from the 2025 Max May and Lydia May Memorial Holocaust Art and Writing Contest are on view at The Dayton Art Institute. Named in memory of the grandparent of Renate Frydman, director of the Dayton Holocaust Resource Center, the annual competition invites students in grades five through 12 across the Miami Valley to reflect on the history and lessons of the Holocaust through art and writing. This year’s theme was Eighty years after the Holocaust, the Second Generation shares the history of their families. Never Again, Never Forget.

Antioch College in Yellow Springs will dedicate an Ohio Historical Marker on campus Oct. 2 in honor of Class of 1950 alumnus Rod Serling, who created and hosted televisions’ The Twilight Zone. The date marks the premiere of the iconic anthology series in 1959. That evening, the Yellow Springs Film Festival will present a tribute to Serling at its opening ceremony. Guests will include Serling’s daughter, Anne Serling. The program will include a live performance of one of Serling’s radio plays, and a screening and discussion of a classic Twilight Zone episode. After his army service in World War II, Serling, who hailed from upstate New York, attended Antioch College. There, he met his wife, Carol Kramer, and became involved with the campus radio station. As part of Antioch’s work-study program, he worked at WNYC radio station in New York. His writing career began in 1950 as a continuity writer for WLW radio in Cincinnati; Serling then made the jump to television, writing for Cincinnati’s WKRC-TV. He died in 1975.

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To read the complete October 2025 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.