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Name: Nancy Cohen Shechter

Occupation: Educational director at Temple Beth Shalom of Western Monmouth County

Address: Toms River

Family: Married 38 years to Allen, a CPA and owner of the firm Alvino and Shechter in Neptune. Two children: Jay, vice president of the Compliance Department of Pershing Holdings in Jersey City is married to Cynthia, an occupational therapist in New York City. They have one child, Ayden, 4, and live in Emerson. Daughter Dori works in human resources for Polymer Technology in Newark, Del., and is married to Jarret Prybutok, executive vice president of Polymer Technology. They live with their son Shyya, 2, in Newark, Del. Mother Leah Cohen lives in Lakehurst.

Community: Life member of Hadassah. Past president of the Sisterhood of Congregation B'nai Israel in Toms River. Member of the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, attending 22 conferences and presented at four.

Hobbies: "I like to read and I scrapbook. I photograph and make scrapbooks with the pictures. I started out by making one for my mother-in-law's 80th birthday. I make a scrapbook of the graduating students from our temple's Hebrew high school and give it to the rabbi every year. He calls it his 'book of life'."

Self-portrait: "It's very important to me to find different ways to present information. Everyone's brain works a different way, and in order to educate, you need to find different modalities so people can understand at their level. I feel that's one of my strengths -- I can come in to a program and present information to the auditory, visual learner, or the tactile learner."

Motto: "We plant seeds for the future and never know where they will grasp and take hold."

Greatest accomplishment: "My family -- my children, who now have their own children."

Bad habits: "I'm not a neat or organized person."

Favorite TV: "The Good Wife."

Favorite food: "I love food. Anything I can chew or swallow."

Best childhood memory: "Going to my grandparents' every Friday. My grandfather was a tailor and my grandmother was the bookkeeper. She worked with my grandfather, so she didn't make the Shabbat meal. We went out to eat always at the same restaurant then would go back to their home where my grandfather, who could play any tune you hummed, would play the organ and we would all have a sing along."

People don't know that I... "Don't cook. My husband does all the cooking. His mother was a marvelous cook and he inherited her cooking genes. I have always been in Jewish education and that has meant long hours and not being home to make dinner."

Last book I read: "The Last Child," by John Hart.

The biggest asset in the local Jewish communities: "The fact that people are involved in spirituality. For such a long time we prayed to God but weren't searching for God. Now with spirituality, people are getting in touch with their inner self and are trying to find a personal connection to God."

The biggest problem in the local Jewish communities: "The biggest problem is the funding for Jewish education. It's an undue burden for a synagogue to take on those costs to make a top-notch school with computers and their programs. It's difficult to keep up with the public schools and their equipment. There is no funding to supplement our religious schools to purchase these items. You want to make religious school as exciting and on the level of the public school, but on the other hand, it's quite expensive to purchase these items. Unfortunately, the way the economy is now, there is no one place the congregations can go to for extra money for educational supplements."

If I had more time I would: "Travel. I've been to Israel and parts of the United States. But I'd love to go to Europe with my husband."