Beryl Feinberg did not simply buy pastries from Sunflower Bakery. She made a point of supporting its mission.

When friends came for Shabbat dinner or a meal, she served Sunflower products. When she went to someone else’s home, she often brought something from the Rockville nonprofit kosher bakery and told its story: young adults with learning differences training for jobs in pastry, culinary work and hospitality.

“She was the ambassador for Sunflower,” said her husband, Ed Feinberg.

That enthusiasm translated into work. Feinberg served on Sunflower Bakery’s board and finance committee, helped organize a board retreat, testified before the Rockville City Council on its behalf and had recently been elected vice chair.

Her work with Sunflower was one part of a long career in public and community service.

Feinberg, a former three-term Rockville City Council member and Montgomery County government official, died Aug. 9 at home in Rockville of pancreatic cancer. She was 75.

Sunflower’s Jewish roots were part of what drew Feinberg to the organization. The nonprofit operates two kosher kitchens and was founded on Jewish values. Jody Tick, Sunflower’s executive director, said Feinberg saw its work as an expression of tikkun olam, the Jewish principle of repairing the world.

Tick said Feinberg brought to Sunflower the skills and connections of someone who had spent decades in local government. She helped the organization think strategically about funding, drew on her knowledge of local resources and brought expertise to its finance committee.

“She went to everything. She volunteered for everything, and she was always willing to lend a hand,” Tick said.

Feinberg understood Sunflower’s training model. Students are taught workplace skills and prepared to move into jobs in the community.

When Feinberg came into the bakery, she interacted directly with students behind the counter. If another customer turned to an adult trainer instead, Ed Feinberg said his wife sometimes steered the customer back to the student.

“She wanted to redirect them to that, because that’s what they were learning,” he said.

Her interest in people with disabilities began long before Sunflower.

As a child in New Jersey, Feinberg knew a cousin named Diana who had been institutionalized. Her family visited Diana regularly, and Feinberg befriended her. She could not understand why Diana could not live at home.

Later, while working as a librarian in Prince George’s County, Feinberg saw adults with intellectual disabilities brought into the children’s room and given children’s books. She found books designed for people with lower reading levels but adult interests and pushed the library system to use them.

“We can’t bring them in and read them fairy tales that you would read to 5-year-olds,” Ed Feinberg recalled her saying.

The same concern followed her into Montgomery County government, where she became involved with Project SEARCH, a program that helps young adults with disabilities train for and obtain jobs in county government.

Her husband described her as a “connector” who brought together managers, recruiters, mentors and job candidates. She urged supervisors to consider accommodations such as allowing more processing time or using visual cues.

Feinberg summed up his wife’s philosophy in a line her husband included in his eulogy: “Idealism without action is empty, but idealism with action can change the world.”

That approach also characterized her government career.

Feinberg spent 37 years in public service, including 28 years with Montgomery County government. Her positions included budget analyst, senior manager in the Office of Management and Budget and chief operating officer and deputy director of the Department of General Services.

She was elected to the Rockville City Council in 2013 and re-elected in 2015 and 2019. Her husband said she believed local government had the most immediate effect on people’s lives.

On the council, Feinberg focused on budgets and whether development was being matched by school and infrastructure capacity. She also advocated for seniors, children, inclusion and the LGBTQ community.

Her civic interests were rooted partly in the era in which she came of age.

Feinberg grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, in a Jewish home shaped by Shabbat dinners, Passover and Jewish education. As a teenager, she attended the Shaker Village Summer Workshop, where, her husband said, she became more aware of civil rights, the anti-war movement and injustice.

She entered American University’s School of International Service in 1968, where she met Ed Feinberg on their first day of college. They became best friends before dating and marrying. Both were among the first undergraduate interns at the State Department.

Jewish life remained important to Feinberg. She and her husband were members of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase, where she served as membership chair and on the board.

The couple were married for 52 years. They had one son, Jeremy, and two grandsons, Max and Tyler.

Away from public life, Feinberg loved gardening. At their former corner house in Rockville, neighbors knew her as the person planting in the fall before the garden emerged in spring.

Her husband said the polished public official could become “absolutely silly” with her grandchildren, getting down on the floor to play with them.

Feinberg remained active until she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in mid-April.

In the final days of her life, Ed Feinberg said, their conversations turned less to government or organizations and more to what had mattered most to her.

“It was really being a mother and grandma,” he said. “Those were the things that meant most to her.”

Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.