JFS Perspectives

Honorees Harvey and Sue Allon, JFS President & CEO Yana Vishnitsky, and Honorees Ken and Rebecca Gart

As we promised in last week's blog post, here is the update about Reel Hope you've all been waiting for...

On December 8, Jewish Family Service supporters headed downtown to the fabulous Ellie Caulkins Opera House for Reel Hope 2011, the agency’s annual film benefit. More than 500 attendees celebrated with honorees Harvey and Sue Allon and Ken and Rebecca Gart and enjoyed the U.S premiere of the spy thriller, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Attendees sipped on “Vodka Reels,” the signature cocktail for the event, before enjoying a delicious boxed dinner prepared by Kevin Taylor, popcorn, and candy.

Thank you to event co-chairs Debra Duke and Kerry Shelanski, event advisor Carla Bartell, and emcee Lisa Belkov-Snyder for their roles in making the event a success! Thanks to the hard work of our outstanding co-chairs, committee, honorees, and staff, the event was a huge success! A big thank you to an anonymous donor who generously provided a $25,000 match, allowing us to raise additional funds during the event. In the end, Reel Hope grossed $435,000. Our heartfelt thanks to all the wonderful community-minded individuals and organizations that support the agency through this event - check out the list of sponsors!

Board Chair Alan Mayer addresses the crowd and shows the electronic tribute journal

Check out more event photos by Chris Schneider! View the heartfelt video, The Chain Reaction of Good, which was shown at the event. You can also take a peek at the electronic tribute journal and see all the wonderful accolades our well-deserving honorees received.

If you attended Reel Hope, thank you for your support. We'd love to hear your feedback! Please leave comments below.

Please save the date for our next fundraiser, the JFS Executive Luncheon on May 8!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

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What an incredible week of support we've had! On Tuesday, December 6, supporters generously donated to Jewish Family Service through Colorado Gives Day. Colorado Gives Day is an initiative to increase philanthropy in Colorado through online giving within a 24-hour period (which turned out to be 36 hours because of website glitches). Coloradans gave more than $12 million to 900 nonprofits and we were fortunate to receive more than $15,000 of that money to support our programs and services! And thank you to Garbanzo Mediterranean Grill for partnering with us on this day to help us raise awareness and money.

Then, last night we had our annual film benefit, Reel Hope 2011 at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. Thank you to all the people who attended and generously donated money during the event!

Since we're exhausted from a long day yesterday, we will provide a full re-cap and photos from the event soon. Here are a few photos we snapped while we were setting up to tide you over...

Stuffing and setting up bags for the event. In case you were wondering, this is what 550 bags looks like!