And the finalists for Program of the Year are...
FINALIST: Jewish Community Teen Foundations, Jewish Community Endowment Fund Watch this program's video
For the past five years the Teen Foundation program has offered groups of Bay Area Jewish teens the opportunity to learn about philanthropy by exploring Jewish values and ideas. One hundred teens serve on the four Boards: San Francisco/Marin, the South Peninsula, the North Peninsula and the East Bay. Through a weekend retreat and seven Sunday afternoon meetings, the young foundation members discuss Jewish thought and ideas and participate in a series of exercises designed to teach them how to become philanthropic leaders informed by Jewish values. The teens also raise the majority of funds used to pay for the grants that they make. Since the program’s inception more than $650,000 has been awarded to deserving organizations, including $204,000 that was given out last June. The teens’ diverse concerns were reflected in the grants awarded, including help for inner city American youth, the hungry in Africa, Jewish Coalition for Literacy, Jewish Family and Children’s Services, the preservation of the environment in Israel, and many others.
FINALIST: Get Up and Go (GUG), Peninsula Jewish Community Center (PJCC) Watch this program's video
Seed funded by the Endowment’s Newhouse Fund in 2007, this PJCC program serves more than 100 seniors a year, and is run by gerontologist, Betty Burr. Get Up and Go provides volunteer accompanied transportation services to frail seniors so they can run errands such as going to the grocery store, pharmacy, and medical appointments. Companionship also plays a key component, especially for seniors with no family, or whose families are not local or available due to their work schedules.
FINALIST: Closing the Digital Gap, Tech-Career (Israel) Watch this program's video
Asher Elias, the son of Ethiopian Jews, came to Israel before Operation Moses began. He grew up Israeli, without other Ethiopian Jews around him. After graduating from Jerusalem’s College of Management with a degree in business and computers, Asher made a decision to combat discrimination against this marginalized population by developing a program that provided future opportunities to better integrate Ethiopians into higher levels of Israeli society. Now in its 6th year, Closing the Digital Gap empowers young Ethiopian Jews (ages 22-29) in Israel by providing them technology and software training, ultimately placing graduates in high-tech industry careers. The program is housed on Kibbutz Nachshon. Students sleep 5-6 to a room, work and study from 7:45 a.m. to late at night and only go out on weekends. There are two exams a week and scores must be 80 or above to pass. If students fail a test twice, they are out of the program. The 1st class graduated 11 students and all were placed in high-tech jobs.
FINALIST: Jewish Chaplaincy at Stanford University Medical Center - Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Program Watch this program's video
The children’s program is a part of the Jewish Chaplaincy at Stanford Medical Center. D'vorah Rose RN and Chaplain Bruce Feldstein M.D., an emergency room physician, began the chaplaincy to address the need to provide spiritual and emotional care to Jewish patients. Bruce launched the chaplaincy with almost zero resources and has built it into a growing, thriving part of the South Peninsula Jewish Community. The children’s program works out of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital to address the special needs of 400 Jewish children and their families who are hospitalized there annually. This includes newborns and children with complex medical problems such as neonatal diseases, birth defects, genetic disorders, trauma and cancer.
FINALIST: Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS): National Resource Center for Accurate Jewish Content in Schools, Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) Watch this program's video
For 3 ½ years, ICS has been working with textbook publishers to correct inaccuracies in textbooks related to Jews, Judaism and Israel in both pre- and post- publication stages. Addressing the roots of anti-Semitism and ensuring that students learn unbiased facts about Israel and the Jewish people before entering college, ICS has reviewed more than 160 textbooks from 13 publishers to date. This resulted in over 1,800 changes in Jewish and Israel related sections and over 430 changes in K-8 textbooks in CA. The ICS also creates curricula for schools and provides teacher training through regular workshops for hundreds of teachers at the California Council for the Social Studies.
- Watch all Program of the Year videos
- Read about the 2009 Anunal Meeting Award honorees
- Read about the Helen Diller awardees for Excellence in Jewish Education
