About Sam Dorf

A photo of Sam Dorf, candidate for Oakwood City Council, with his family at a picnic in Oakwood..

Why I Love Oakwood

With newborn twins in tow, my wife and I moved to Oakwood from Dayton in 2012 to start our new family. We didn’t know much about Oakwood before renting here, and then buying our first home, but we soon discovered that Oakwood was the ideal place to build our life in Ohio. We chose Oakwood for the first-rate services and walkability, the excellent public schools, the city’s safety and the abiding quality and growing diversity of our community. What we did not anticipate was that over the next thirteen years we would meet and come to care about many neighbors, make a lot of new friends, and regularly find different ways to engage with the community in strengthening our shared and beloved city. We quickly learned that Oakwood is more than beautiful parks, great schools, well-maintained historic homes and buildings, and trees: Oakwood’s true beauty and value lies within. It is about the people who live, work, and shop here. 

I have volunteered my time to Oakwood and in the surrounding Dayton community in various ways by: 

  • founding Citizens for a Better Oakwood, a local grassroots organization dedicated to ensuring that Oakwood continues and grows as a welcoming, inclusive and more just city for its residents and visitors. The group is committed to working with city officials, the Oakwood community and the surrounding communities to meet its goals. 

  • co-founding and serving as the first Secretary of the Oakwood Inclusion Coalition with city, school, library and community partners.

  • completing Oakwood Public Safety’s Citizens Police Academy. 

  • serving on past Oakwood School’s principal and superintendent search panels.

  • founding Oakwood’s Annual Family Pride Picnic.

  • participating in Green Oakwood educational initiatives. Sam’s campaign has earned the endorsement of the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund.

  • serving on the Board of Directors of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance, and previously serving on the Board of the Bach Society of Dayton.

  • previously serving on the Boards of Anti-Defamation League’s Cleveland Regional Office (covering Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Western Pennsylvania), Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton, Jewish Community Relations Council Racial Justice Alliance, among other Jewish organizations.

I am also an educator, scholar, artist, and administrator. In this capacity, I’ve served in a number of leadership roles that have helped me develop the skills (i.e. university-wide budgets and policies, and inclusive excellence work) to be a leader in Oakwood.

Our family belongs to Beth Abraham Synagogue in Oakwood, where my wife serves on the Board.