JFS Perspectives

Last month, many generous individuals, organizations, and corporations collected holiday gifts for JFS clients. Through our Bright Holidays program, 432 individuals received hand-picked gifts such as clothing, toys, electronics, sports equipment, and other items on their wish lists. This is a significant increase from last year’s total of 308!

The gifts came from 65 individuals, groups, and businesses or organizations, which was also a large increase from 37 last year. Thank you to all the individuals and the following organizations for their generosity: Graland Country Day School, Cherry Creek High School, El Jebel Shrine, Greenwood Elementary School Book Club, Havurah Mosaic, Meritage Energy Company, Holland and Hart, Allied Jewish Federation, Denver Westin, and the Operation Santa Claus program at Lockheed Martin.

In addition, the Sisterhood of Temple Emanuel collected toys and gift cards from the Sunday school students that we distributed to 132 of SHALOM Denver's TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) clients at a holiday party. UMB Bank also provided 50 $10 gift cards to Target and King Soopers for these families to buy additional gifts.

Many JFS staff members also contributed gifts for this party and adopted families for Bright Holidays. "It always amazes me that our staff members are the first to contribute gifts for this program!" says Yana Vishnitsky, JFS president and CEO. "Even though nonprofit employees are not known for making a lot of money, they continue to exceed my expectations with their generosity!"

We appreciate everyone's compassion to make the holidays brighter for those in need! Ralitsa Ranova, JFS International KidSuccess school-based therapist, said, "I had the chance to see great joy in the eyes of my clients when they got their gifts." There are countless stories we wish we could share about how thankful all the families were for the outpouring of support from so many in the community.

Shelley Kolman, JFS Family Safety Net administrative assistant who helped with the Bright Holidays program, said, "Many people referred other family members and friends to adopt. We had one individual recruit five families to adopt people for the program, who then each adopted several families of all sizes including one family of 12. I was blown away by all the new donors that came forward this year!"

And last, but not least, thank you to Westword for donating 554 pounds of food and $250 in gift cards for clients of the Weinberg Food Pantry through their annual holiday drive!

 

Thank you to Andrea Stillman (pictured above) and all our volunteers who helped organize all the gifts!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department

 

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

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

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

Last month we told you we needed to raise $7,000 to provide Passover food to families served by the Weinberg Food Pantry. In our last Passover post, we showed you how hard our Family Safety Net staff worked to find the best prices and Kosher for Passover food.



We're happy to report that, with your help, we raised $8,000 and provided Passover food to 178 individuals! In addition to the money we received, several businesses generously donated food such as produce, eggs, and cinnamon.



Thank you to our many volunteers who helped pack, distribute, and deliver the meals! We had groups from several religious schools and youth groups, as well as families and individuals who helped us out on two different days last week.



We're proud of the community for coming together in this effort and we can't thank you enough!

-Alaina Green and Kari Alpen, JFS Marketing Department