Is One of Your New Year's Resolutions to Start Volunteering?

So you answered yes to the above question, but you don't know where to start? JFS is currently seeking volunteers for our Bikur Cholim (Visiting the Sick) Para-chaplain Program.

Bikur Cholim para-chaplains provide spiritual support and a Jewish connection through holiday services and regular visits to isolated members of the Jewish community, such as residents in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, prisons, and hospitals.

In order to be a para-chaplain, volunteers must be Jewish, but do not need an extensive Jewish education. If you wish to lead services, you will need a more extensive Jewish background, but there are other rewarding options available such as being a visitor in a nursing home, assisted living facility, or private home.

You may still be wondering if this volunteer opportunity is for you. To help answer this question, we asked some of our current para-chaplains to share their stories and experiences. We hope you enjoy the following excerpts:

"I've often wondered about the statement that I heard in para-chaplain training and at other times that 'I get more out of doing this than the clients I serve.' But after doing this for several years, I understand it, because it's true. It's very rewarding work. People really appreciate what you do for them and I'm always learning something new and interesting."
-Jay Miller

“I just love veterans, especially the Jewish veteran I visit at the State Veteran’s Nursing Home! He and I celebrate Shabbat together every Friday, which is a gift to me to meet with him. We sing loudly and others just look at us wondering what we are singing as we light electric Shabbat candles, drink grape juice, and eat challah together. I bring one of my dogs along each week. Just to see his face light up when he sees me with the dog is such a joy to my heart! My visits remind me to cherish the simple moments; they are indeed the most humbling and the most treasured. I adore being a para-chaplain with Jewish Family Service. These, too, are the special moments in my life.”
-Anshel Bomberger

“I am assigned to visit a gentleman at a nursing home who is 99. One day, I went to visit him and he said ‘I am so glad that you called and came to see me, I was hoping that you would.’ Before that I really didn’t know how he felt about my visits. On another recent visit, he had this huge chocolate bar and he said that he remembered that I like chocolate (his mind is really sharp - it amazes me) and he was waiting to share it with me! He does talk a lot about being ready to die and I assure him that he is entitled to those feelings, and that it’s okay for him to tell me about it. To me it is so rewarding that I can fill the extraordinary need to be the person with whom he can share these feelings!”
- Barbara Goldstein

If this volunteer opportunity appeals to you, we urge you to sign up for the 2010 para-chaplain training on April 14, 21, 29, and May 6, 5:30-8:30 p.m. at JFS, 3201 S. Tamarac Dr. Training is provided by Donna Lutz, Nursing Home Outreach coordinator; Rabbi Eliot Baskin, JFS community chaplain; Nancy Benyamin, JFS director of volunteer services; and expert guest speakers.

For more information or to sign up for the training, please contact Nancy Benyamin at (303) 597.5000 x369.

If being a para-chaplain doesn’t suit you, check out the host of other exciting and rewarding volunteer opportunities at JFS!

Gretchen's Story About the JFS Chaplaincy Program

Recently, Rabbi Eliot Baskin, Jewish community chaplain, spoke at Allied Jewish Federation's staff giving event about his work. Gretchen Koplin, senior manager of planning and allocations at Allied Jewish Federation, openly shared her struggle with cancer and spoke about the help she received from Rabbi Baskin during this difficult time in her life.

Having helped to produce the staff giving event last year (and having previously agreed to help produce this year’s as well), I am saddened that I cannot be there with you all as you make your individual commitments to the Federation’s 2010 Annual Campaign. I find that this year, I have a very personal story to share that speaks to the absolute importance of the work that we do, every day, to make the Jewish world and our local Jewish community a stronger one. I know that Rabbi Eliot Baskin, our Jewish Community Chaplain, has agreed to speak as well, and while I don’t know the precise nature of his remarks, I believe that what I have to say will tie in quite nicely.

As you are all aware, I have been absent from work these past few months due to my ongoing battle with Leukemia (a battle that I am determined to win!). While my situation today is quite hopeful, and I have every reason to believe that I will be back in the swing of things before I know it, my situation in August and September of 2009 was quite different. Please take a moment now, and try to put yourself in my position:

• I have been told that I have Acute Myeloid Leukemia, one of the most difficult of cancers to beat, a cancer of the blood.


• I have been told that my initial prognosis is no better than a 25% chance that I will live more than two years post-treatment.


• I am admitted, almost immediately, to the Adult Oncology ward of the hospital to start on an aggressive round of chemotherapy designed to hopefully put me in remission. I start this round of treatment with the knowledge that together with the chemotherapy doses I received to treat my breast cancer two years ago, this regimen may cause incredible toxicity to my body and irreversible damage to my heart.


• I am in the hospital for five weeks, not only for my 40th birthday, but also for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

It is this last that truly gives me pause. This is the time in the Jewish calendar, when G-d makes big decisions: who shall live, and who shall die. And here I am, facing arguably one of the most serious threats to one’s existence possible. In my heart, I am terrified that the timing of this means that G-d has perhaps already reached a decision about me; perhaps this is all of the time I have been granted in this life.

My hospital door opens, and Rabbi Baskin walks in for a visit. Knowing him through my work at the Federation, and knowing what a wonderful person he is, I am of course pleased to see him. We chat about recent happenings in the Jewish community, how great the hospital staff is, as well as about what I am currently going through, when he says to me; “The timing of this is really interesting, you know.”

My heart stops, inwardly I cringe, and I brace myself. I think: "Here it comes…any second now, the Rabbi will tell me that this is the end of the line for me.” Instead, Rabbi Baskin speaks of this time of year being a time for rebirth and renewal, and that the process I have embarked upon now (chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant) is, by definition, a real rebirth for me. I will be receiving a whole new immune system; new life with which to fight this terrible disease. He clasps my hand and the hands of my parents, and recites a wonderfully comforting Mi Sheberakh (prayer for healing), and then takes his leave, promising to stop by in a week to see how I am doing. I am filled with a profound sense of relief, and feel immeasurably strengthened by his words and the new point of view that they present me with.

This is my story, but it is only one story. This is what Rabbi Baskin does for the local Jewish community, you see: he travels around to local nursing homes, hospitals and prisons, offering pastoral care to the Jews that find themselves there, most of whom have no other access to a Rabbi. I suspect that Rabbi Baskin’s calendar is literally stuffed to the brim with appointments and visitations, and I know that countless Jews every year are the direct beneficiaries of the crucial pastoral work that he does, just as I was.

Because the service that Rabbi Baskin provides to the community just affects Jews and not the general population, the Jewish Community Chaplaincy program (housed at Jewish Family Service of Colorado (JFS), is completely reliant upon funds raised from the Jewish community; JFS cannot use any government grants or United Way funding to pay for this program. For the past several years, JFS has used a portion of our Federation’s annual allocation to help fund this incredibly important service to the local community, and with the funds we raise in the 2010 Annual Campaign, we will be able to continue to support this service, and other services and programs that are just as important to our Jewish community.

The chaplaincy program, including volunteer para-chaplains, provides spiritual support to hundreds of people each year in our community. Thank you to Gretchen for courageously sharing your story and reminding us of the chaplaincy's program important work.

We Get Mail! One Volunteer's Impact as a Para-Chaplain

Below is a letter from one of JFS's new volunteer para-chaplains, Lori Stine, who visits one of our Senior Solutions clients who lives in a nursing home. This is a letter she wrote to Donna Lutz, Nursing Home Outreach coordinator, and Nancy Benyamin, director of volunteer services. This is one of many examples of the difference one person can make in a family's life...

Dear Donna and Nancy,

Hello! I wanted to share with you both that I had a great visit with Shirley Barocas Wednesday morning at ManorCare. Although I had intended to spend 1 - 1 and 1/2 hours with her, I ended up being there almost 2 and 1/2 hours! We chatted, I played my guitar, and sang the songs that Donna taught me. I sat with her while she ate lunch, and then we sat outside for a bit. As fortune would have it, her daughter, Melanie, and two grandchildren who visit every spring from out of state walked into Shirley's room just as I was saying my goodbyes. It was truly delightful to meet Melanie, who struck me as being a very special and wonderful woman. We chatted for a few minutes while her daughters socialized with their bubbe (grandma). We also exchanged phone numbers and email addresses.

Well, yesterday I got a wonderful email from Melanie, and I'd like to share part of it with you:

Lori,

Thank you so much for singing to my mom. I have not seen her look that happy in years about anything other then my girls. Even little Ariel noticed how happy and talkative she was after your visit. Mom has been sinking deeper and deeper into isolation. It is hard with me living across the country. I send in special meals each week and have an extra nurse advocate that helps with the doctors and home when necessary. I also provide a nurse aide that come in 2 days a week for 2 hours but it is still a very lonely world especially since she does not manage the phone well now either. But your visit singing Jewish songs was incredible.

--Melanie

I'm sure that most of the time, para chaplains don't get direct feedback about the positive effects of their visits. I felt tremendously blessed to get such positive feedback after just one visit! Music is a very powerful healer, and I look forward to sharing more of it with Shirley and, in time, with others at ManorCare.

Thank you both for training me so that I could have the amazingly rewarding experience I had this week!

--Lori

For more information about volunteer opportunities, please contact Nancy Benyamin at (303) 597.5000 x369.

A Caterpillar Emerges Into A Butterfly: One Woman’s Struggle With Grief

Sue Silverman recently participated in an eight-week bereavement support group through JFS’s Rafael Spiritual Healing Center. Sue’s daughter, Sarah, lost her three-year battle with Leukemia 10 years ago at the age of 16. During the years that Sarah was sick, Sue did absolutely everything she could to keep Sarah healthy, including spending many months in Durham, North Carolina for a cord blood transplant and chemo and radiation treatments at Duke University (staying in a Ronald McDonald House). Sue’s life centered around her daughter for those three years and when Sarah passed on, Sue’s life essentially stopped.

“Sarah died at home on Shabbat,” Sue recalls tearfully. “I could feel her soul leave her body and I saw my mother and grandmother waiting for her. After that, I don’t remember much. I was basically comatose for the next several years.” For years following Sarah’s death, Sue saw numerous psychiatrists and was on and off many types of anti-depressants, but nothing worked for her. To make matters worse, a year after Sarah passed away, Sue was diagnosed with breast cancer. With the support of her family, she went to LA for surgery and treatment. Fortunately, she has been in remission for the past nine years.

During Sue’s struggle with depression and other mental health issues, she got involved in “Bosom Buddies,” a group for people with breast cancer. “I became very active in this group - attended support group meetings, helped with fundraising, and served on the board,” says Sue. This group was in Phoenix, Arizona, where the family lived at the time. Then, three years ago, Sue’s aunt moved to Denver to be with her two children. Since Sue and her husband, Barry had no family left in Phoenix, they decided to move to Denver as well.

“As it turns out, I was not ready to cut my strings in Phoenix,” says Sue. “With my involvement in “Bosom Buddies” I had finally started feeling good again and then we moved to Denver, I felt lost and completely stuck in my grief for Sarah. Shortly after we moved, I saw an article in the newspaper about the Rafael Spiritual Healing Center bereavement support groups, but I was not ready at the time to tackle my grief.”

Sue continues, “I basically hid when we moved here. I stopped our traditional weekly dinners with my family and I couldn’t unpack any of our boxes.” This past September, Sue realized she needed help and sought out a psychiatrist. She was referred to a psychiatric resident who diagnosed Sue with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorder, and depression. With the psychiatrist’s help, Sue realized that the PTSD and other issues stemmed back to her mother’s illness and death more than 14 years ago. “My mother was sick for one year with cancer and handled it with humor and grace,” explains Sue. “Sarah saw all that and I believe that Mom got sick to show Sarah how to handle her illness.” Sue’s role as both her mother’s and daughter’s primary caretaker had taken more of a toll on her than she realized.

The psychiatrist conducted a blood test that showed that Sue’s body doesn’t metabolize serotonin in drugs, which is why none of the anti-depressants she had tried over the past 10 years had worked for her. The doctor then put her on an anti-depressant that has been around for more than 40 years, that doesn’t contain serotonin, and Sue felt like a different person. “I finally felt ready to unpack boxes in my house, face my grief, and move on with my life,” says Sue. Shortly after that, a friend reminded her of the bereavement support group at JFS and Sue felt it was the right time to try it.

“The group came at just the right time in my life and helped me tremendously,” Sue says enthusiastically. “I was stuck in my grief for 10 years and needed a way to move past it and get closure for Sarah’s death.” For various reasons, the Silvers never had an unveiling for Sarah (the Jewish ceremony that typically takes place 11 months after one’s death to unveil the headstone at the grave), and therefore didn’t feel that they got closure.

During the bereavement group, Sue told the other participants that when she and Sarah were in North Carolina for Sarah’s treatments, they went to a new butterfly house exhibit at a local museum. “Sarah was fascinated by the butterfly house and we all just loved it,” recalls Sue. “The group participants encouraged me to create a butterfly garden in memory of Sarah, which I thought was a great idea!”

Upon completion of the eight-week bereavement group, Sue created the garden in her yard. Rabbi Baskin, JFS community chaplain and co-facilitator of the group, led a dedication ceremony for friends and family. “At the ceremony, we stood in a circle holding purple and white balloons,” says Rabbi Baskin. “Sue and others shared about the living legacy of Sarah, who, like a butterfly led a short but brilliant life. I then led the group in a reflection, we chanted the shehecheyanu (a prayer to thank G-d for bringing us to this occasion), and released the balloons.”

“When the Rabbi said the shehecheyanu, I felt a great sense of relief and closure,” says Sue. “I strongly believe that the bereavement group helped me move past my grief more than anything else, especially because I was finally at a place in my life that I was ready for the group.”

Rabbi Baskin adds, “Just as a caterpillar emerges into the new life of a butterfly, Sue emerged from her grief to blossom once again as a balabusta (a homemaker who fulfills the household duties for the family, its spiritual bonding, and helps its members hold together) with the support of the spiritual bereavement group, family, and friends. It is such a sacred privilege helping people, like Sue, work through their tears of complex grief to re-enter a life of service and beauty.”

For more information on the Spiritual Healing Bereavement Support Groups at JFS, please contact Cynthia Heller at (303) 597.5000 x392.

Congratulations to Alysa Stanton, First African-American Female Rabbi!

Last Saturday, Alysa Stanton became the world's first African-American female rabbi. We're proud to say that she is part of the JFS of Colorado family! More than 10 years ago, Alysa was trained as a JFS para-chaplain by Donna Lutz, Nursing Home Outreach coordinator, and Rabbi Eliot Baskin, JFS community chaplain.

"Alysa was so caring and loving," says Donna. "She cast a warm light on the whole class and added so much to her para-chaplain group. Congratulations, Rabbi Stanton!"

According to a recent article by the JTA, there are a handful of African-American congregational presidents, but Alysa will be the first African-American rabbi. She will begin her rabbinate in August at Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, NC, a 53-family Conservative synagogue that is also affiliated with the Reform movement.

Rabbi Steven Foster, senior rabbi at Congregation Emanuel in Denver, worked closely with Alysa while she lived in Denver and traveled to Cincinnati for her ordination. He says, "Rabbi Alysa Stanton is an extremely spiritiual person who makes us as a religious community stronger in our faith. As she has said, she is not an African American who happens to be a rabbi, but she is a rabbi who happens to be African-American. Her sense of bringing us closer to our values, our religious commitments, and to God will be apparent in all she does. Whoever has the chance to learn from Alysa will be blessed."

Rabbi Eliot Baskin worked with Alysa in Fort Collins and Evergreen, as well as through the JFS para-chaplain program. He said in a recent Denver Post article that Alysa helped him, a musically challenged rabbi, by singing the traditional prayer, Kol Nidre, in his place on Yom Kippur in Fort Collins. "She had the congregation moved to tears. She sang it with all her heart. I knew then this was a person of faith, dedication and perseverance." He adds, "Alysa personifies loving kindness. She's incredibly warm, exuberant and enthusiastic. She will rejuvenate her new community."

JFS wants to congratulate Rabbi Stanton on this great achievement and wishes her much success!

Photo by Tony Tribble, Special to The Denver Post