Securing Our Future

For Sharon and Marvin Fleischman, Caring for Older Adults Is a Family Affair

It’s been said that you judge a community on how it takes

“I

The Centennial Fund is the central campaign for ensuring the

care of its elderly,” note Sharon and Marvin Fleischman,

long-term security of Jewish Detroit. Providing for the well-

“and we want to make sure that our seniors are being taken

being of our vulnerable members, including older adults, is a

care of to the best of our community’s ability.” The Fleischmans

core priority. The Fleischmans decided to fund the new kitchen

are part of a family that has had a profound and longstanding

because it was an important need. “Many elderly people

commitment to older adults in Jewish Detroit, beginning with

come to JSL having lived alone, and they haven’t eaten well in

Marvin’s father, Edward I. Fleischman, who served as President

a long time,” says Sharon. “We provide three healthy, kosher

of the Home for the Aged. Marvin often visited the Home with

meals a day. The residents become healthier and they begin

his father, and he and Sharon began volunteering as a couple

to talk to people. It’s so much better for them.” Marvin adds,

shortly after they were married. That was 61 years ago; since

“When you help the people at the home, many times you’re

then, they have remained deeply involved in support for our

really helping the whole family, because they know their

seniors, along with their children, nieces, nephew and grand

loved ones are being taken care of.” The Fleischmans point

children. Marvin is also a past president of the Home and his

out that Jewish Detroit has a high percentage of older adults,

son Jeff is a current officer at Jewish Senior Life (JSL). “It’s

and that the average age for people in senior residences is

never been something we had to think about,” they say, “we

now much older than in earlier generations. All of this is why

just did it. It has always been a family affair and a labor of love.”

caring for our seniors continues to be of critical importance to

Now, in honor of Sharon and Marvin’s 60th wedding anniversary,

the Fleischman family. “While many people think about ‘I,’ our

the family has made a commitment to the Centennial Fund to

family believes the world is about ‘we.’ The ‘we’ in this case is

provide a new kosher kitchen and ‘Nosh Nook’ at JSL.

the entire Jewish community of Metropolitan Detroit.”

August 18 • 2016

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