Mendy Klein z"l's yahrzeit is this Tuesday.

Before Shabbos, I wanted to share something he said to me more than once - something that has stayed with me, and feels especially meaningful now.

Mendy was not the kind of person who waited for problems to surface before responding. He thought ahead. He saw what others were not yet ready to see. Years before much of our community was willing to acknowledge the realities of abuse and addiction in our world, Mendy was already asking the next, deeper question without wavering or blinking an eye.

There were two things that mattered deeply to Mendy and that he always came back to: prevention and early intervention. He knew we had to help those who were already hurting, but more than just picking up the pieces, he knew we had to build something strong enough to protect them from ever breaking in the first place. He would say to me: "We've opened the floodgates. We've opened the can of worms. We need to help people, but we need to stop it before it happens." And that stayed with me.

He brought the vision to the proactive side of Amudim's work. That's who Mendy was - always one step ahead, able to see what needed to be built before the rest of us even understood the need, and when he spoke, his words never leave you. And I am so grateful for that.

Today, Amudim's prevention work reaches schools across the world. Through our SEL curriculum, students from fifth through twelfth grade are learning emotional awareness, how to build healthy friendships, ways to navigate peer pressure, coping skills, substance awareness, and more. We are working inside schools, training educators and providing parents with tools to help bring some of this learning home.

This is possible because of Mendy Klein. It is not something we came up with on our own. It was shaped by his vision, and carried forward by his voice and the standard he set. And his voice is still pushing us. It's still telling us it's not enough to wait for the phone to ring and still urging us to get ahead of the issues before they cause any pain.

And he was just as clear that we could never step back from the front lines to do it. Whether it was the case management, the 2 AM phone calls, the showing up and standing with families in their worst moments - that all had to stay. Mendy felt it was a balance we had to hold. He wanted us to respond to the crisis while building prevention at the same time, because the people who need help deserve nothing less.

Many of our staff have been with Amudim since Mendy was alive. They knew him. They worked alongside him. And to this day, his voice still shapes the way we think, the way we plan, and the way we make hard decisions. When we find ourselves in moments where there is no easy answer, which happens often, someone will still stop and ask: What would Mendy say? Are we making Mendy proud? Are we staying true to the mission he entrusted to us?

That's not a tradition someone else put in place. It happens because Mendy had that effect on others. His conviction was so strong, his standard was so clear, that those who were in the room with him then are still measuring themselves against it years later. That is the very essence of who Mendy was and what his legacy will always be.

This week, leading up to his yahrzeit, I want to share a few very special moments with you. Some stories. A video that shook me to my core... And ultimately, a request, because the work Mendy believed in needs support, more now than ever.

But today, before Shabbos, I just wanted to leave you with this:

Every time a child gets the tools they need before they reach a breaking point, every time a child learns to speak up instead of shutting down, that is not simply Amudim's achievement. That is Mendy's legacy, still reaching people. Still guiding the work. Still ahead of the rest of us.

Have a good Shabbos,
Zvi