This Week

The Center Of It All

JCC Central

Renovations- will help the Jewish Community Center
connect as the central address for Detroit Jewry.

One of the three outdoor pavilions at the JCC in West Bloomfield.

HARRY KIRSBAUM
StaffWriter

I is not just about bricks and mortar; it's also
about making the Jewish Community Center
the "main address" for Jewish Detroit.
Communal leaders had that goal in mind
in 1998 when they launched a three-phase, $25
million endeavor to renovate the D. Dan and Betty
Kahn and Jimmy Prentis Morris buildings of the
JCC as well as shore up Judaic programming in
both locations. Renovations will improve the educa-
tional, recreational and cultural facilities. Now,
higher-than-planned renovation costs have re-set "
the fund-raising goat at $30 million.

3/10
2000

6

The project's objective is simple, said JCC presi-
dent Lawrence Wolfe: "Transform the JCC into the
center of informal Jewish education, [make it] the
central neighborhood address for all members of our
community and enhance existing endowments."
The most ambitious fund-raiser in the Center's
74-year history, the $30 million drive is part of the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's
Millennium Campaign for Detroit's Jewish Future,
whose set goal in the summer of 1998 was $50 mil-
lion. The campaign seeks to ensure that local Jewish
institutions and organizations have the physical,
operational and programming wherewithal to serve
Detroit's 96,000 Jews (per Federation's population
survey of 1989) into the 21st century.

