Michael Hopkins & Jill Borg Spitzer

Happy New Year! The big news at JFS: the transition of JFS CEO is well underway! My official last day as CEO of Jewish Family Service is January 24, but I will still be part of the JFS family as a consultant. For the past month Michael (read more about CEO Designate Michael Hopkins)and I have been meeting to discuss the agency: programs, staff, Board of Directors, community, and many other topics.  The list goes on and on.  After 26 years, I’ve discovered there is so much inside my head and not on paper. I’m glad I’ll be around to help fill in the blanks over the next few months as Michael becomes more and more conversant about the agency.  I’m impressed with Michael’s curiosity, thoughtfulness, calm demeanor, and passion for our mission. He’ll be a great leader for JFS and the community. I hope you get a chance to meet him soon. I know you’ll be impressed.

I now have boxes in my office to pack up my belongings. Of the papers and books that I thought would have meaning to someone else, I now realize there are several newer editions that make what I have obsolete. But then I find that gem, a fundraising letter written 20 years ago by a past President, a client letter from 15 years ago, a photo of us launching a new program—evidence of how JFS has helped so many and how we’ve redefined the meaning of community. More on that in my next post.

I remember heading off to college, filled with the excitement of what was to come in the years ahead. Today, it’s still re-energizing to be around young college students who are enthusiastic about their education. Here at JFS, we are so fortunate to be able to award deserving local students with scholarships to aid their education through the Rubenstein Family Scholarship Program. This week, eight local students who are current and past recipients of the scholarship attended a luncheon in their honor at JFS-Turk Family Center.

At the luncheon, Board Directors Nadja Kauder and Fern Siegel, and Rita Heller (Co-Chair of Rubenstein Family Scholarship Committee)  and I chatted with each student about their school (Berkeley, UCSD, Mesa College, Wesleyan University, UC Davis, SDSU, and UC Santa Cruz) and their courses of study. I can tell you that we have some future veterinarians, teachers, and financial analysts in our midst.

Dr. Robert Rubenstein, a 2011 Mitzvah Award recipient at our annual Heart & Soul Gala, established the Rubenstein Family Scholarship Program for members of the San Diego Jewish community who are attending college or vocational school. Each year, the program grants 10-15 scholarships of up to $2,500 to students. The funds can be used toward tuition, books, and supplies. Dr. Rubenstein emphasized that recipients should give back to the community when they are able. He received help with school and he believes in the idea of “paying it forward”.

We’d like to thank Dr. Rubenstein and Marie Raftery for making the goal of a higher education a little easier for some of the brightest young minds in our community to achieve. And good luck to all the students – although I don’t think they need it.

Standing (L to R): Mike Levy, Rebecca Koppel, Tom Lebed, Nikita Boborov, Eden Berdugo, Liora Jaffe, Atara Jaffe, and Daniel Brami. Seated: Dr. Robert Rubenstein and Marie Raftery

Every year, the Serving Older Holocaust Survivors (SOS) Program throws a Hanukkah party with food, drinks, and entertainment. Let me tell you–it was so lively and fun this year that people from all over the building were stopping by to watch and everyone in the room had a big smile on their face.

Fifteen survivors attended, with several bringing their children and family members. All were treated to a wonderful performance of songs in French, Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English by seven 4th graders from the San Diego Jewish Academy, accompanied by their teacher, Shani Abed, on guitar. Then, survivor and opera singer Wolf Hartmayer delighted everyone with his amazing voice.

Thirteen year old Daniel Saloner, who raised $2,000 for the Serving Older Holocaust Survivors (SOS) Program back in July, put together Hanukkah gift bags for every survivor who attended the party. What a great way to commemorate the holiday!

This year we received a very generous donation of 33 brand new bicycles and 15 helmets for children enrolled in our Embrace-a-Family holiday gift-giving program. They were provided by an anonymous donor who has donated bicycles to San Diego non-profit organizations for the past six years.

The donor isn’t Jewish, but said he selected JFS for his donation this year because JFS has always been a benevolent San Diego organization that gives directly to clients – and that’s what he looks for when selecting where to send his donation. (Thank you!)

To raise the money for the bicycles and helmets, he sent a newsletter to the customers of his business, his friends, family, people he does business with—pretty much everyone—and asked for monetary donations. He bought the bikes and helmets and delivered them to our storage facility last Sunday.

So, why did he choose to donate bicycles? He had several reasons.

“Some of these children haven’t had many ‘brand new’ things in their lives. When you give a child with an unpleasant life a new bicycle, you do several things. You give them pride of ownership and make them equal to their peers. You give them an opportunity to exercise, an opportunity to think and dream, and an opportunity to get away from their problems. For older children, it can make them mobile enough to get a job. A bicycle serves a whole lot of purposes.”

The donor didn’t want to bring attention to himself. He said it’s not about him. I think he wants to let his gesture speak for itself and perhaps motivate others.

On behalf of the Embrace-a-Family clients, we thank this donor for his selfless actions and for making the holiday season brighter for so many children.

Craig Lambert, Senior Director of Aging & Wellness Services, is leaving JFS after 15 years of service. There is no way to adequately express in just a few paragraphs the impact Craig has had on this agency over the years. He established himself as a leader in senior care in San Diego and spearheaded many programs that make JFS the elite senior care agency it is today. To put it simply, he will truly be greatly missed.

During his time at JFS, he was instrumental in the establishment of the University City and Rancho Bernardo Older Adult Centers. He helped develop On The Go, San Diego County’s largest volunteer senior transportation program. He introduced the concept of Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC) to JFS. Most recently, he developed our Care Management Transition Program in conjunction with Scripps Memorial Hospital, a program that aims to assist seniors in staying independent at home after a hospital stay.

Craig did all of these things and more, with grace, care, and a relentless drive to improve life for older adults. He was always great at seeing the “big picture” and thinking of new, creative ways to address community needs. His commitment to bringing San Diego Jewish seniors the best possible quality of life is immeasurable, and his efforts will be long lasting. Senior care in San Diego was taken to a new level because of Craig Lambert. We are grateful to have had him as a part of the JFS family. We are sad to see Craig leave, but we wish him and his family the very, very best.+

Jill Borg Spitzer and Craig Lambert

Thanks to generous new funding from the Leichtag Foundation, we are excited to be expanding our reach in North County Coastal now—and for years to come! A new social worker will be housed in Encinitas, where she will connect residents with all the great programs at JFS and hold educational, spiritual, and fun events to bring the community together. We hope you’ll join us for our first program, “Feeling at Home with Hanukkah.” This is a free workshop for interfaith couples, families, and you on Thursday, December 15. It includes singing, crafts, and teaches about the meaning and origins of Hanukkah. Childcare will be provided, too. Participants will also receive a helpful “resource manual” to help them discover and connect to Jewish agencies and programming in their area.  The Jewish community is invited but space is limited (register before it is too late). Click here for more details.

And this is just the beginning! The new initiative, the Jewish Connections Outreach and Social Work (JCOSW) program, will host more holiday events and workshops to create a more vibrant North County Coastal Jewish community. Look for more on our website in weeks to come.

Here at JFS, our Thanksgiving tradition is simple: to help as many families as possible to have a Thanksgiving dinner. For years, we have put together Thanksgiving packages filled with food to make the holiday a little brighter for hungry families in our community.

To collect the food for the packages, food drives were held at L3 Communications, Fireman’s Fund Insurance, JFS’s North County office, and the College Avenue Center. The congregation at Temple Solel generously donated 206 packages. Along with these donations, JFS purchased additional food to put together enough meals for more than 600 families.

Packages include canned yams or sweet potatoes, instant mashed potatoes, canned cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie filling, corn bread mix, stuffing mix, shelf-stable pie crust, evaporated milk, and a $10 grocery store gift card to supplement the purchase of a turkey. Packages also include fresh produce like potatoes, yams, celery, and more. We had help putting the packages together, too. In North County, 40 second graders from Urban Discovery Academy assembled 200 packages. At the JFS-Turk Family Center, participants from Girls Give Back and Hand Up Youth Food Pantry assembled 300 packages. Temple Solel assembled their 206 packages as well.

How are the baskets distributed? JFS Case Managers, Social & Wellness Centers, Care Managers, and Counselors identified families in their programs that would benefit by receiving one of these packages and will distribute them individually.

I would like to thank everyone who helped in this endeavor – but it’s not over. We are still collecting donations, and need a lot more to cover the cost of providing Thanksgiving dinner for more than 600 families.  It’s worth it.

Although food is obviously the main focus of the Hand Up Youth Food Pantry, every once in a while they are presented with the opportunity to branch out beyond food to meet some of the clients’ other needs.

Earlier this month, thanks to a large in-kind donation by Steve Gerendash, Hand Up was able to distribute more than 200 pairs of brand new shoes to the clients at their weekly food distribution in Hillcrest. Shoes ranged from Doc Martin boots to high heels and everything in between.

With the help of our amazing volunteers, Hand Up staff gave each client a choice of two different styles of shoes in their size and let them select a pair. One client, after putting on his brand new tennis shoes, could not control the urge to dance!

What was truly touching about the shoe distribution–besides just meeting the clients’ basic needs–was being able to restore a little dignity to their everyday lives. A child starting the school year with a new pair of shoes, or a person being able to wear nice dress shoes to a job interview can instill confidence that will hopefully last the life of the shoes and beyond.

A heart-warming story crossed my desk today, and I couldn’t wait to share it with all of you.  It’s a story of five young children who came together to make a difference, truly displaying the spirit of tikkun olam along the way.

It all started when their parents took them to the Hand Up Youth Food Pantry to experience volunteerism.  That day, Isabelle, Rachel, Blanche, Abigail, and Hannah—all aged 8 and under—sorted cans, boxes, and bags to put together food packages for 400 families.  The children enjoyed it so much that they asked their parents to bring them back the next week.  They also learned that monetary donations help the Pantry a great deal—for example, just $.19 can buy a can of soup.  So they came up with a plan.

They held a summer-long bake sale with the goal of raising $100 (if you’re doing the math, that’s 526 cans of soup).  With the help of their moms, they used social media and email to advertise the sale.  Their friends and families placed orders for their favorite treats (with ingredients donated by the children’s families), and made their checks out to the Hand Up Youth Food Pantry.  The girls and their moms baked all summer and not only did they reach their goal of $100—they raised $623!  They found the experience to be so fun and rewarding that they can’t wait to do it again next year— it’s going to be their new summer tradition.

I’d like to recognize these children for their selfless actions and thank them for their amazing and generous contribution to the Hand Up Youth Food Pantry.  This donation will go a long way in feeding San Diego’s hungry.  We look forward to hearing about you next summer!

As we begin our year-end fundraising push, Charity Navigator—America’s largest independent charity evaluator—has launched their 2.0 rating system that measures each nonprofit’s Financial Health and Accountability & Transparency. Profile pages have a new appearance and more information, but one thing that remains the same: our 4-star rating (Read our profile). A new graph on the overall page clearly illustrates that our 4-star rating is almost a perfect score. This is an accomplishment that we are very proud of. We are in special company—only 8% of nonprofits reviewed have received a 4-star rating for four consecutive years.

Our consistency is even more impressive when you consider that as a result of the new scoring system:

• Half of the nearly 5,500 charities rated by Charity Navigator received new star ratings
• 19% of the charities’ star ratings decreased, including such marquee names as Harvard University, NYU, Princeton, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• With the bar set higher, the total number of 4-star charities decreased by 20%

Take a look at our profile and feel proud and confident in your support. Our Charity Navigator rating is one piece of the story—I also invite you to look at our Friends of the Family Campaign so you can see the impact of Jewish Family Service and your support. Thanks to the generosity of the community, JFS makes sure no one is alone when they’re in crisis. Solving problems, saving lives, restoring hope—thanks to you.

L’Shanah Tovah!