Metro

Think Tank

Celebration Of Giving

Jewish Women's Foundation marks 10 years of giving.

Lisa Naftaly Brown

Special to the Jewish News

W

hen an organization (or cou-
ple, for that matter) reaches
a milestone anniversary, one
might expect it would throw an elaborate
party. Not the Jewish Women's Foundation
of Metro Detroit (JWF).
Instead, to honor its upcoming 10th
anniversary, the JWF voted to allocate
$75,000 to three community organiza-
tions to meet the urgent, critical needs of
Detroit-area Jewish women, girls and their
families due to the economic downturn.
The following special allocations,
which are separate from JWF's regular
grant cycle, will be disbursed in the next
couple weeks:
• Jewish Family Service, $40,000
for emergency financial assistance for
Jewish families;
• JFS/Project Chessed, $20,000 for
pharmaceuticals;
•Yad Ezra, $15,000 for food for fami-
lies in crisis.
"By choosing to
provide extraordi-
nary grants in these
extraordinary times,
the JWF is recogniz-
ing and responding
to the tremendous
needs in our local
Jewish community,"
Beverly Liss
said JWF trustee and
former JWF chair Beverly Liss, who is
also Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit's 2009 campaign chair.
The JWF was founded in 1999 with
a seed grant from Federation. By June,
the JWF expects to have allocated more
than $1 million.

Sign Of Times

In recent years, financial and social
burdens have weighed more heavily on
Jewish women and families. In 2001,
Jewish Family Service provided 139
families with $134,000 in Emergency
Financial Assistance (EFA), direct cash
grants to individuals for food and shel-
ter, transportation, clothing, utilities
and other basic needs. By 2007-08, 760
families received a total of $525,000 in
EFA. During 2008-09, JFS anticipates it
will have to provide more than $750,000
in EFA to 800 families.
"We are living with these figures:' says
Norm Keane, JFS director. "The degree

of need is astounding."
Because EFA fund-
ing is limited, and the
need is "tremendous,"
Keane says it is dis-
bursed as a last resort.
"We try to see if there
is another way to
Norm Keane
provide assistance to
a family, such as a government entitle-
ment or another agency that focuses on
its specific issues': he said.
"JFS works with each family to
develop a plan so they are empowered
to change their situation. JWF's $40,000
gift will literally save lives?"
Project Chessed is a JFS-adminis-
tered program. It connects medically
uninsured Jewish adults to a network
of cost-free health services and pro-
bono medical and dental providers.
Prescriptions, however, are not covered.
In 2007T08, 626 financially qualified
individuals received pharmaceuticals
through Project Chessed, at a cost to the
program of $100,815. In 2008-09, this
cost is expected to rise to $120,000 for
as many as 900 needy clients.
"We are spending more than $8,000
per month on pharmaceuticals:' said
Rachel Yoskowitz, Project Chessed direc-
tor. "These medicines are critical to the
well-being of our clients?'
Added Keane, "We help people to
become eligible for prescription assis-
tance programs. Yet, even if they qualify,
there is often a two- to six-week wait to
be approved, leaving Project Chessed to
pay for their required medications in
the interim?'
In addition, Project Chessed often
must pay for medications that are not
covered by prescription assistance pro-
grams. Efforts are under way to devise a
long-term solution.

Gift Of Food
Yad Ezra, Michigan's
kosher food pantry,
is experiencing an,
"ever-growing num-
ber of people coming
in to our agency for
Lea Luger
assistance," said Lea
Luger, Yad Ezra devel-
opment director. "We are serving an
all-time record of 1,460 families, almost
half of which are headed by women:'
"Every day, we add more people to
our rolls:' she said. "This population
fits a new demographic — people in
their 40s and 50s who have always
worked, who suddenly find themselves
underemployed or without jobs, facing a
mountain of debt and in some cases, at
risk of losing their homes.
According to Allan Sefton, Yad Ezra
president, "JWF's grant of $15,000 for
`Food for Families in Crisis' will truly
help us meet our goal of feeding fami-
lies and nourishing hope."
The idea for the Critical Needs
Allocation originated with JWF trust-
ees and past JWF chairpersons Margot
Halperin, Sharon Hart and Beverly Liss.
To assist JWF leadership and trustees
in selecting which programs to fund,
Linda Blumberg, Federation planning
director, and Irwin Elson, planning and
allocations steering committee chair,
briefed an ad hoc JWF committee led
by trustees Fran Hack, Linda Hayman
and Fern Kepes about the unmet needs
identified by the planning department
for the 2007-2008 Rebecca and Gary
Sakwa Challenge Fund, established to
help families at risk. ❑

Lisa Naftaly Brown is the JWF's new associ-
ate director.

Resources

•Jewish Family Service of Metropolitan Detroit. Programs and services
include: addiction recovery; adoption assistance; domestic violence inter-
vention; emergency financial assistance; health care through Project
Chessed; home care for older adults; mentor programs; and transportation
services, among others. For a confidential eligibility assessment for emer-
gency financial assistance or Project Chessed, call (248) 592-2300.
•Yad Ezra is Michigan's only kosher food pantry, helping to feed Jewish
people in southeast Michigan. Contact: (248) 548-FOOD; 2850 W.11 Mile,
Berkley, MI 48072 .
•Jewish Women's Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit: The JWF is a grant
making and educational organization dedicated to expanding opportunities
for Jewish women and girls. Contact: Helen Katz, director, (248) 203-1483.

JWI to focus
on concerns of
Jewish girls.

I

n response to its recently com-
pleted survey of professionals who
work directly with Jewish girls,
Jewish Women International (JWI) has
launched "Brain Power for Girl Power
Think Tanks," an initiative that brings
together 40-50 Jewish women to learn
about and engage in constructive brain-
storming around the issues that affect
Jewish girls.
JWI's Detroit Brain Power for Girl
Power Think Tank, focusing on self-
destructive behaviors, will be held from
9:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30, at the
Max M. Fisher Jewish Federation Building
in Bloomfield Township.
The survey, "Jewish Girls and Their
Behaviors," designed by JWI in con-
junction with Professions Research
Inc. of Washington, D.C., polled Jewish
professionals on such issues as Jewish
girls' participation in behaviors such as
anorexia, alcohol abuse and self-mutila-
tion, or "cutting?' The survey revealed
the top three most common destruc-
tive behaviors encountered in Jewish
professional's work with Jewish girls:
disordered eating habits and patterns
(48 percent), bullying (40 percent), and
risky or precocious sexual behavior (38
percent).
"Jewish girls are coming of age in a
time that is much more complicated than
we did': said Loribeth Weinstein, JWI
executive director. "The goal of our the
Brain Power for Girl Power Think Tanks
is to create a national dialogue around
issues that confront Jewish girls, leading
to programs and initiatives that will help
them on their way to becoming become
strong, healthy, successful women"
The Detroit Think Tank will include
presentations and moderated brain-
storming sessions by experts in the field
of adolescent mental health. Speakers
are Mary Jo Barrett, a leading authority
on trauma and violence and executive
director and co-founder of the Center
for Contextual Change of Metropolitan
Chicago, and Leslie Goldman, health
writer and author of Locker Room
Diaries: The Naked Truth about Women,
Body Image, and Re-imagining the
"Perfect" Body.
Future Brain Power for Girl
Power Think Tanks are planned for
Washington, D.C., New York and Los
Angeles. ❑

October 23 • 2008

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