Community visionaries

PAULA BROOK SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

Facing steep challenges to meet the growing needs for poverty relief and social services in the local community, the Jewish Family Service Agency (JFSA) has put new energy and fresh faces behind its annual Friends of the Family Campaign.

The Friends campaign, launched last week, is the major fund-raiser for the Greater Vancouver Jewish community's front-line social service agency. New this year is an initiative called Family Visionaries, recognizing the growing number of major donors whose energy and compassion enable the agency to fight the battle against poverty, hunger, disability, loneliness and grief.

Also new this year is the fact that the profile of those major donors is changing. They are getting younger – men and women under 50 are taking on the responsibility of community support that has been shouldered up to now by their elders.

"This is the fastest growing group of donors by far," said JFSA director of development Barry Dunner, who calls them his "50-under-50."

"It's time for the younger generation to put into action the values we've learned from our parents and grandparents," said Jill Diamond, an active JFSA board member and a Family Visionary. Diamond, wife of Andrew Abramowich and mother of two young children, said the reason she got involved in the JFSA was not only to follow in the footsteps of her late grandfather Jack and father, Gordon.

"It's also really important to Andrew and I to teach our children by example the values of tzedakah and chesed – acts of justice and compassion," she said.
Jeremiah Katz, also active on JFSA's board and the youngest of the Visionaries, was drawn to the agency when he became aware of the community's poverty issues.

"I was shocked when I found out the poverty rate among Vancouver Jews is almost 20 per cent," he said. "Poverty has not been at the forefront of the Jewish community's understanding, but the JFSA is helping to bring it there."

The fact that younger volunteers and donors are stepping up to the plate is very good news to JFSA executive director Joseph Kahn-Tietz. The agency is in a tight squeeze between funding cuts and sharply rising demand for services, he said.

In 2002, the agency ran out of funds for poverty relief after nine months and was forced to draw on scant reserve funds. At the same time, the weak financial markets meant a sharp decline in income from endowments. Despite these and other challenges, JFSA was able to increase its services in almost all areas, including resettlement assistance to more than 500 Jewish immigrant families; counselling to more than 600 individuals; vocational services to 420 unemployed; and thousands of meals to poor, disabled and isolated seniors in Vancouver, Richmond and the North Shore.

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