August 2005
For more information, contact Jodee Fishman Raines, (248) 203-1487
At its August 16th board meeting, The Jewish Fund approved $969,528 in grant payments for 16 primarily health-related programs. The majority of the newly funded programs will benefit the local Jewish community.
Two grants to Jewish Family Service will help financially needy Jewish adults and families. This includes $576,000 over two years for Project Chessed, a network of over 310 physicians, hospitals and diagnostic labs that are donating medical care and $214,000 for financial assistance for families in crisis situations. According to Jewish Fund Board Chair, David Page, “The sluggish economy in Michigan and federal cutbacks have seriously impacted unemployed and working class families, calling for expanded financial counseling and assistance and improved access to affordable health care. Project Chessed is a highly creative, complex and promising effort to provide comprehensive, free health care to those in our community who have nowhere else to turn.”
Another $85,000 in grants will support the needs of Holocaust Survivors, including $25,000 to the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (leveraging $25,000 in matching funds raised nationally) to provide in-home support services through Jewish Family Service, and $60,000 over three years to the Jewish Home and Aging Service’s Program For Holocaust Survivors & Families. “As complex as aging issues are for most older adults, they often are far more complicated for those who have survived the horrors of the Holocaust,” explained Page. Home-based programs will help those survivors in need with grocery shopping, housekeeping, meal preparation and other basic daily activities that many of us take for granted but that often become so challenging for older adults that they must move into assisted living or even nursing care facilities. The Jewish Home program will provide companionship and social stimulation to help prevent depression for those survivors who find it increasingly difficult to leave their home.
Well seniors will benefit from an innovative program being developed by the Young Israel Council of Metropolitan Detroit with the assistance of a three-year, $52,000 grant. COJAR will offer day-long educational, cultural and recreational programs at the Oak Park Jewish Community Center geared toward Orthodox Jewish retirees, but open to the entire community.
Two new grants will improve health care for people in the broader community. A three year, $150,000 grant to the Gary Burnstein Community Health Clinic will help with the start-up of a free health clinic in Pontiac for the uninsured, especially the homeless, and a $15,000 grant to Planned Parenthood of Southeast Michigan will expand their education and outreach programs designed to reduce incidence of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted disease in young, primarily low-income women.
A $20,000 grant to NCCJ will help strengthen relations between the Jewish and broader community through a creative educational program featuring a partnership between Shalom Street, the Museum of African American History, the Henry Ford and the new Arab American National Museum. NCCJ will facilitate the “Youth Diversity Museum Project” to teach middle school aged youth about different cultural and ethnic groups.
The Jewish Fund was created in 1996 from proceeds of the sale of Sinai Hospital to the Detroit Medical Center and has since awarded $28.4 million in grants to expand health and human services to residents of metropolitan Detroit.
Following is a complete listing of the dollars allocated and purposes of the latest awards.
- Friendship Circle (West Bloomfield, MI) – $40,000 for the first year of a two-year, $75,000 grant to hire an adult volunteer coordinator for the new Ferber Kaufman Life Village.
- Gary Burnstein Community Health Clinic (Pontiac, MI) – $50,000 for the first year of a three-year, $135,000 grant for start up costs of a new, free medical clinic serving uninsured, primarily homeless people in Pontiac.
- Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit (West Bloomfield, MI) – $20,000 for the second year of a three-year, $60,000 grant to contract with Jewish Family Service for social work services for middle school-aged children.
- Humanitarian Aid Foundation (Williamston, MI) – $25,000 in matching funds to provide in-home support services for Holocaust Survivors in metro Detroit through Jewish Family Service.
- JARC (Southfield, MI) – $50,000 for the first year of a three-year, $135,000 grant to develop CHEERS, a program providing meaningful social inclusion opportunities for people with developmental disabilities.
- Jewish Apartments & Services (Oak Park, MI) – $40,000 for the first year of a two-year, $75,000 grant to hire a social worker to support the expansion of the Coville Apartments.
- Jewish Community Center (West Bloomfield, MI) – $10,000 challenge grant to partner with Comcast Cablevision to broadcast JCC cultural and educational events to homebound and other members of the community.
- Jewish Family Service (West Bloomfield, MI) – $288,528 for the second year of a three-year, $687,056 grant for Project Chessed, a network of free and reduced price medical care for uninsured and underinsured Jews living in metropolitan Detroit.
- Jewish Family Service (West Bloomfield, MI) – $214,000 for a third year to provide direct financial assistance to Jewish families and individuals in crisis.
- Jewish Family Service (West Bloomfield, MI) – $82,000 for an eighth year to provide escorted, door-to-door transportation to frail Jewish seniors.
- Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit (Bloomfield Hills, MI) – $50,000 for the Detroit Jewish Population Study.
- Jewish Home & Aging Services – Program for Holocaust Survivors & Families (West Bloomfield, MI) – $25,000 for the first year of a three year, $50,000 grant to establish a friendly visitor program for elderly, home-bound Holocaust survivors.
- Kadima (Southfield, MI) – $35,000 for the 2nd year of a 2 year, $75,000 grant to provide on-site art therapy and other therapeutic programs at Kadima for adults with mental illness.
- NCCJ (Detroit, MI) – $20,000 to pilot a partnership amongst Shalom Street, the Museum of African American History, the Henry Ford and the new Arab American Museum to teach youth about different cultural and ethnic groups.
- Planned Parenthood of Southeast Michigan (Detroit, MI) – $15,000 to expand its public education and community outreach campaign.
- Young Israel Council of Metropolitan Detroit – $20,000 for the first year of a three year, $50,000 grant to develop COJAR, the Council of Orthodox Jewish Active Retirees.
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