JFS Perspectives

Here are some exciting things that have happened around JFS so far this month:

On May 6, Sara Leeper from SHALOM Denver, and Inna Oganesyan from the JFS New Americans department, attended a Rose Youth Foundation celebration for grantees. JFS received $10,000 for its citizenship program and SHALOM Denver received $6,000 to increase community employment opportunities for people with developmental disabilities.


Sara Leeper, Sara Goldstein from Rose Youth Foundation, and Inna Oganesyan.

On May 8, the JFS Executive Luncheon raised a record $468,000—$156,000 more than last year— to support all programs of JFS, including mental health counseling, senior and adult in-home care, disability and employment services, and family safety net services. Read the full story and view event photos!

On Friday, May 11, Denver Jewish Day School seventh graders volunteered in the pantry as part of their study on homelessness. They arrived at the pantry and gave the regular volunteers a break while they performed all their duties, including unloading the truck from the morning’s pickups at grocery stores, stocking the shelves, and organizing the pantry.

On May 12, Temple Sinai eighth graders held a fundraiser for the Weinberg Food Pantry and Lone Soldier called “Food Fight 4 A-WEAR-NESS.” The event included the world-famous rapper Kosha Dllz, DJs and breakdancers, a fashion show, a professional Flatland BMX demo, an on-site photo booth, educational presentations, food, refreshments, dessert, and more! In total, they donated 374 pounds of food and bagged 120 pounds of rice for the food pantry. In addition, they gave us 100 Fazzoli’s meal coupons to hand out to clients.

Here’s to a successful rest of the month!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

This week, we received some beautiful baskets of food and toiletries from the sixth grade religious school class at Congregation Beth Evergreen. Nineteen students bagged rice and held a food drive for items needed in the Weinberg Food Pantry. In honor of Purim this week, they made cards and put the items into colorful baskets.

Thank you to Gareth Heyman, a longtime supporter of JFS and member of Beth Evergreen, for connecting their religious school with our volunteer department for this project!

If your family or group is looking for some fun, easy ways to help JFS, check out the Family and Group volunteer page on our website and contact Nancy Benyamin, director of volunteer services, at 720.248.4642 before starting your project.

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

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!

The signature drink of the evening.

Kari proudly displaying her duratran featuring the honorees, Harvey and Sue Allon and Ken and Rebecca Gart!

The red carpet is ready for the guests to arrive!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

Thank you to everyone who donated food to the Weinberg Food Pantry during our High Holy Day food drive! Congregants from the following synagogues donated nearly 12,000 pounds of food: B'nai Chaim, Beth Evergreen, Hebrew Educational Alliance (HEA), Rodef Shalom, Temple Emanuel, Temple Micah, and Temple Sinai. Your generosity is greatly appreciated by those in need!

After the food is donated, it takes a team of people to help sort it all to be placed on the Pantry shelves. With a little help from our staff, volunteers from HEA's JConnect group as well as Bar and Bat Mitzvah students and their parents, spent a Sunday morning organizing all the donations. We know it's a big (and dirty) job and we greatly appreciate the help!

 

And now that this food drive is over, we're starting to collect for Thanksgiving to help feed families who otherwise wouldn't be able to enjoy a holiday feast. If you are interested in helping this cause, please contribute any of the following items or provide a complete holiday meal for one family (the average cost is $36): Frozen turkeys, gravy mix, sweet potatoes, canned cranberry sauce, canned pumpkin pie filling, stuffing mix, canned vegetables, instant mashed potatoes, aluminum foil roasting pans, and grocery store gift cards.

Because we can stretch your dollar by purchasing items at a reduced cost, we prefer cash donations. Please donate now (indicate "Holiday Meals" in the "Tribute Text" box) or bring food donations to JFS, 3201 South Tamarac Drive in Denver, by Wednesday, November 16.

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

 

When Azteca Ranch Market recently closed its Denver location, the store owner, Hermine Blau, generously donated 9,000 pounds of food and other products to the JFS Weinberg Food Pantry!  Staff members from the Family Safety Net department took several trips to the store and spent about 24 man-hours to empty the shelves.

We received a variety of items including baby food, juice, paper products and cleaning supplies, tortillas and tortilla chips, cereal, cultural and ethnic foods, and more. To put 9,000 pounds in perspective, the Food Pantry averages about 18,000 pounds of donated food each month from  various grocery stores.

Shelly Hines, Family Safety Net director, says, “This was a very significant donation. With all of the cuts in federal and state funding, we couldn’t operate at our current level without the generosity of our donors. As the need for food has increased, we have had to think creatively about new sources for nutritious food. This donation included all the quality foods we like to put on our shelves and well as a variety of fun extras that we don’t usually have. We appreciate the generosity of the store and the abundance of the donation!” 

 

The JFS staff helped sort the items and we have already distributed more than half of the food to our Food Pantry clients. Now we are gearing up for our Thanksgiving food drive - look for more details coming soon about how you can help!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

As part of a class project, first graders at Denver Academy of Torah (DAT) created "Cooking up a Mitzvah," an original cookbook full of their moms' favorite recipes. They sold the cookbooks to family and friends for $5 each and donated the money to the Weinberg Food Pantry at JFS! They have sold 130 cookbooks to date - $650 in sales plus additional donations, which the class brought to JFS earlier this month.



In addition to donating the proceeds from the cookbooks, the kids got to see where their money was going. They learned about the Food Pantry by playing a game that our Family Safety Net department developed and took a tour of the Pantry. Not only that, but they helped stock the Pantry shelves and break down boxes!

Debbie Foster, the first grade teacher, said, "The project integrated many aspects of the 1st Grade Curriculum; our Unit on Money, tzedakah, community. They had a wonderful time and felt great about their contribution!"



Thank you to all the students and to DAT for this meaningful and creative donation and volunteer experience.

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

Tribute Gifts for Father's Day June 19
We hope you are enjoying this beautiful summer weather as much as we are! As you get ready to celebrate Father's Day this weekend, please consider making a tribute gift to JFS in honor or memory of your father (or grandfather)! A tribute gift honors and recognizes the people close to you while showing your support for JFS.

In addition to Father's Day, think about other occasions you may want to commemorate this summer like weddings, anniversaries, b'nai mitzvahs, birthdays, or remembrances.  And you do not even have to send a card - we take care of sending an acknowledgement of your gift to your friend or family member!

Make a tribute gift online now!





Celebrate JFS Event on June 27
Also, remember Celebrate JFS (formerly known as the Annual Meeting) is coming up on June 27th and today is the deadline to RSVP for this fun event at District 475. Join us for cocktails, Kosher-style hors d’oeuvres, to congratulate our 2011 Max Frankel Volunteer of the Year, Daisy Flynn, and raise a toast to the outgoing board chair, Steve Kris. JFS will also welcome Alan Mayer as the next JFS board chair and install new board members.

Register today!





Second Annual Tour De Farm Bike Ride is July 31
Support urban farming and share the harvest by participating in the second annual Tour De Farm bike ride on Sunday, July 31. The Weinberg Food Pantry is the primary beneficiary of fresh produce grown at Ekar Farm, receiving more than 6,000 pounds from last year’s harvest!

Register today!

We hope you'll make JFS a part of your summer through any of the above activities!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

Recently, Temple Emanuel hosted Mitzvah Day, the congregation's annual social action event. This day provides a concerted congregational effort to help those in need, when families go out into the Denver community to do all types of volunteer work. Members give their time, their energy, and their talent as they participate in a variety of mitzvot. Some of the projects included yard clean up and planting, painting rooms, entertaining at hospitals and nursing homes, animal care, preparing office mailings, and meal preparation.



Three of the projects that helped JFS included yard work at the JFS Group Home, cleaning and sorting in the Weinberg Food Pantry, and bagging rice at Temple Emanuel for the Pantry. In addition, congregants and religious school classes collected various toiletry and personal hygiene items for our clients.

Ed Janoff, the captain of the project at the Group Home, said, "Several families pitched in to get the yard ready for summer, which included cleaning up shrubbery, planting flowers, and trimming trees. We all worked together really well and had fun interacting with the residents while doing our mitzvah project. We all felt a great sense of accomplishment when we were finished and can't wait to come back and help next year!"

Thank you to Temple Emanuel and its members for spending the morning helping our agency!

To learn more about volunteer opportunities with JFS, please contact Nancy Benyamin at (303) 597.5000 x369.

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

As part of its Character Education program, Carson Elementary School students recently completed a school-wide community service project to benefit refugee families in the Denver area. A fifth grade student presented the idea to Carson’s Character Education committee that this year's project should benefit refugee families. She had the idea to do something for families associated with Salud Family Health Centers because she had volunteered there with her family.

Tracey Pliskin, a JFS volunteer and Character Education committee member, thought there was perfect synergy with the JFS refugee program. “A few months ago, JFS asked me to lead an effort to collect 100 toiletry bags for its Refugee Mental Health clients, and this project at Carson was the perfect opportunity to make this happen,” says Tracey. “We decided to create 200 toiletry bags to split between JFS and Salud, and kids also made fleece blankets for the families at Salud.”

Tracey and other Character Education committee members collaborated with staff from JFS’s Refugee Mental Health department and the Salud Family Health Centers to create a three-part curriculum for this project:



Week one: The students listened to a personal story from a JFS interpreter who was in a refugee camp in Burma before coming to the United States. Tracey says, “In April, the Character Education trait we taught in classes was courage, so we tied it in nicely with the program because of the courage needed to leave behind your family, country, etc. and to go somewhere new. We handed out a homework project for students to find out the stories of their own families and how they arrived in Colorado. Then their stories were shared during the next two weeks of this project.”





Week two: Students created "welcome to America" cards to be placed in every Carson Cares bag of toiletries. Each class group also made a knotted fleece blanket for the families of the Salud clinics.


 
Week three: Kids assembled 200 Carson Cares bags filled with shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, conditioner, and lotion. Bonus items in many of the bags were deodorant, sunscreen, razors, and other toiletry items. The students collected the donated items and cash donations from their families and friends. Student council and the Character Education committee also donated money to run the program.



Tracey says of the project, “I think it was incredibly impactful for the kids to see that they were helping people who came to Colorado with nothing and that we were providing such basic items that they couldn't afford. I heard from teachers that the blanket project had a big impact as the kids (especially younger ones) could not believe that a child didn't have their own blanket. Hearing the personal story of one refugee was powerful for the students, teachers, and parents in the audience, too.” She adds, “Talking and teaching about refugees is not an easy topic, and it was eye-opening for many involved. Dorothy Moon from JFS sent over some great lesson plans that really helped.”



This is the third year Carson has done a school-wide community service project. Other projects included care packages for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and bags for homeless children in Denver Public Schools.



Thank you so much to Tracey Pliskin and all of Carson Elementary for taking on this incredible community service project! The bags and cards you created for our refugee clients are invaluable for helping them feel welcome in their new homes and we appreciate your generosity in giving them items that they may not be able to afford on their own. Also, thank you to Tracey for taking the wonderful photos of the students in action!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

Chad, our Weinberg Food Pantry coordinator, recently received a call from the USO. The USO (United Service Organizations Inc.) is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 140 centers worldwide. They were evacuating military families and American citizens from Japan and had a lot of leftover food to donate to the Weinberg Food Pantry.



Chad drove the Pantry truck to DIA and waited until the last of the evacuees were out of the hangar before soldiers from the Army loaded the food onto the truck. We received 126 cases of Lunchables, 5 cases of oranges, 4 cases of apples, and assorted chips and baked goods, totaling 1,584 pounds!

Thank you to the USO for all that you do for military families and for our Pantry clients!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department