As it continues its mission to support religious and cultural programming in Milwaukee, the Helen Bader Foundation has awarded a grant to the New York–based Jewish Outreach Institute to provide program development services to two Milwaukee agencies. The grant was one of 28 new grants totaling $1,254,616 through the foundation’s Jewish Life and Learning program area.
The $225,000 grant to JOI, to be allocated over three years, will be used to help the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center enhance its programming for interfaith families and Jewish Family Services to create programming with spiritual healing and holistic wellness components.
“These partnerships will be JOI’s first efforts in Wisconsin,” said Tobey Libber, the foundation’s Jewish Life and Learning program officer. “JOI has a strong track record of helping agencies rethink how they serve niche communities within Judaism.
“For the long-term vitality of Jewish Milwaukee, JOI’s efforts will help build bridges to those individuals in our community who have unique needs.”
Libber explained that the JCC and JFS are working independently with JOI, a non-profit organization that promotes development of Jewish community-based outreach programming. Established in 1988, it holds national conferences and offers informational resources, and has facilitated the creation of scores of Jewish outreach programs.
In assuming his new post with the foundation last year, Libber has created new grant-making strategies that he said have “formalized the foundation’s commitment to the Jewish Life and Learning program area. The four new strategies for this funding area are formal Jewish education, informal Jewish education, reducing barriers to participation in Jewish activities, and outreach efforts.”
“I think this new structure will enhance the way grants are received and in turn, processed,” he explained.
26 more grants
In addition to the JOI grants, the foundation approved the following grants:
• Jewish Family Services — $80,000, including a three-year $60,000 grant to establish a scholarship fund for preschoolers in its Child Development Center and special needs children in its Keshet program; and $20,000 to complete the integration of the Keshet program into JFS’ infrastructure.
• JCC — $15,000 two-year grant to create a model of service for children with special needs at the Steven and Shari Sadek Family Camp Interlaken.
• Hillel Academy — $163,500, including a three-year, $103,500 grant to hire two educational assistants to improve educational services to students; and a two-year, $60,000 allocation to hire two B’not Sherut, young Israeli women who perform a year of national service teaching youth outside Israel.
• Jewish Youth Foundation, Inc. — $145,000, including a three-year, $120,000 grant to expand its Discovery and Leadership Institute serving Jewish teens; $15,000 to promote its Living Legacy holiday workshops; and $10,000 to create a web site for its Camp Gan Israel summer day camp.
• Milwaukee Jewish Federation — $131,616 over three years to help the Coalition for Jewish Learning, MJF’s education program, offer tuition support to Jewish educators pursing advanced-level degrees from either the Laura and Alvin Siegal College of Judaic Studies (formerly the Cleveland College of Jewish Studies) or Chicago’s Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.
• Wisconsin Society for Jewish Learning — $75,000 over three years to document the history of Jewish life throughout Wisconsin’s smaller towns.
• Yeshiva Elementary School — $65,000, including a three-year, $40,000 grant to offer continuing education for its teachers; $15,000 for renovations to its learning space; and $10,000 over three years to offer a series of workshops for parents to strengthen the parent-child relationship and promote positive parenting skills.
• Children’s Lubavitch Living and Learning Center, Inc. — $57,000, comprising a two-year, $30,000 grant to plan long-term fundraising efforts, including a new endowment fund, and a $27,000 grant to staff a full-time coordinator for special needs children in its preschool programs.
• Milwaukee Jewish Day School — $50,000, including a two-year, $20,000 grant to complete a curriculum review; $20,000 for its Holocaust Partnership Program, which pairs a class with a Holocaust survivor; and $10,000 for improvement to its kindergarten classrooms, including new educational materials.
• Tikkun Ha-Ir of Milwaukee — $50,000 to create educational and social action programs that bring together Jews from various streams of Judaism.
• B’nai B’rith Youth Organization — $45,000 over three years to keep its cultural retreats, conventions and membership dues affordable for local teens.
• B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation Milwaukee Ltd. — $35,000 to add staff for its outreach to Jewish college students and young adults in Milwaukee.
• Congregation Agudas Achim Chabad — $25,000 for two years to create an afterschool program for teens that combines cultural and religious activities.
• Machon Bais Dovid v’Mordechai — $25,000 for technology training and therapeutic services to assist its students in the workplace.
• Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra — $25,000 for a spring 2004 concert series featuring classical Jewish music.
• Mequon Jewish Preschool, Inc. — a $20,000, two-year grant to enhance its art, science, music, dance and physical education programming.
• Bais Hamidrash, Inc. — $15,000 over two years for the Milwaukee Community Cheder’s program serving Milwaukee-area Israelis and others fluent in Hebrew.
• Torah Foundation of Milwaukee, Inc. — $7,500 to explore creating and selling multimedia Jewish educational materials.
Further, the foundation awarded 16 Jewish-related grants outside the Jewish Life and Learning program area. They include:
• Jewish Home and Care Center — $100,000 to renovate the Helen Bader Center, its special unit for residents with Alzheimer’s disease.
• Jewish Children’s Adoption Network in Denver — $5,000 to recruit Jewish foster and adoptive homes for Jewish children.
• Early Childhood Development in Israel — 14 grants totaling $720,000 to support programs serving children with developmental disabilities or who are from new immigrant families.
Since it was established in 1992, the foundation has awarded more than 2,700 grants totaling $114 million in five program areas: Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia, Early Childhood Development in Israel, Economic Development, Jewish Life and Learning, and Sankofa-Youth Development.
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