Celebrating People in Action for National Volunteer Week!

National Volunteer Week begins this Sunday, April 18th and runs through April 24th. As Metro Volunteers stated, "This national celebration is about inspiring, recognizing, and encouraging people to seek out imaginative ways to engage in their communities. It's about demonstrating to the nation that by working together, we have the fortitude to meet our challenges and accomplish our goals. National Volunteer Week is about taking action and enouraging individuals and their respective communities to be at the center of social change - discovering and actively demonstrating their collective power to foster positive transformation."

Volunteers are the backbone of JFS and we could not provide services to more than 22,000 people each year without their invaluable support. Thank you to our hundreds of volunteers who give selflessly to our agency! Nancy Benyamin, director of volunteer services says, "I'm inspired every day by what the volunteers do and how they truly give from their hearts!"

We encourage you to get invovled and find a volunteer opportunity that fits your interests and schedule! For more information about volunteer opportunities, please contact Nancy Benyamin, director of volunteer services, at (303) 597.5000 x369.

Don't Miss Out on Your Chance to See Christopher Buckley, Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, Live in Denver!

You don't want to miss this exciting event. Get your tickets today!

Learn more about the featured speaker, Christopher Buckley, through this video.

Our 100th Post: A Retrospective

Since it’s our 100th post, we thought we would recap some of our favorite posts since we started the blog in September 2008. We hope you enjoy (and indulge us in) this walk down memory lane! Please help us celebrate this milestone by leaving comments about your favorite post(s)!

2008

September: We wrote our first post to introduce the new Web site, blog, and agency branding. The new look of JFS features a brand new logo, and a more modern appeal that we hope will energize our staff, volunteers and supporters.

October: We attended the Colorado Nonprofit Assocation Fall Conference and started creating content and personality for the blog.

November: Denver Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce named JFS the Nonprofit of the Year at the 12th Annual Gay and Lesbian Business Awards Dinner. This annual event honors Colorado individuals and organizations that promote gay-friendly values in the business community.

December: JFS in the News! We were spotlighted in several news stories that month, including feature stories on 7News and 9News and articles in the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News.

2009

January: Celebrate Life! Colorado Senior Connections (CSC) hosted a party honoring 13 Berkshires at Lowry residents who were 90 years old and older.

February: Arnie Kover reflected on his 30th anniversary with Jewish Family Service and SHALOM Denver. The same month, Jewish Disabilities Network hosted the first annual Jewish Disabilities Awareness Day.

March: Marilyn Lande, a great friend, volunteer, and supporter of JFS was a 2009 Jewish Women in the Arts honoree and had an art exhibit at the Rafael Spiritual Healing Center at JFS. Also this month, the JFS Group Home residents attended a private magic show by famed magician, Brad Montgomery.

April: Mark Krivel, a dedicated JFS volunteer, received the CWEE (Center for Work Education and Employment) Volunteer of the Year Award and we celebrated National Volunteer Week - honoring the individuals who dedicate themselves to taking action and solving problems in their communities.

May: We wrote several blog posts this month about various mental health topics to commemorate Mental Health Awareness Month. Guest blogger Evan Silverman wrote one of our most popular posts to date about living with a mental illness. Also, despite the economic downturn of 2009, we raised $153,000 at the JFS Executive Luncheon featuring Frank Abagnale.

June: Alysa Stanton became the world's first African-American female rabbi. Alysa was trained as a JFS para-chaplain by Donna Lutz, Nursing Home Outreach coordinator, and Rabbi Eliot Baskin, JFS community chaplain. We also had our Annual Meeting where we presented the Max Frankel Volunteer of the Year Award and welcomed our new board members.

July: The JFS Group Home crowned a new champion at its annual croquet tournament and we learned that volunteering can be a family affair as one family shares their years of experience volunteering at the Weinberg Food Pantry.

August: We heard stories from people who used our services and liked them: Sue Silverman worked through the grief of losing her daughter 10 years ago by participating in an eight-week bereavement support group through JFS’s Rafael Spiritual Healing Center and the Hübler family shared their experience making their own centerpieces and donating the items to the Weinberg Food Pantry.

September: During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish New Year and High Holy Days, we reached out to isolated Jewish seniors in a variety of ways to ensure that they have a meaningful holiday season. Two of our staff members also shared some personal thoughts on how their work experiences relate to the High Holy Days.

October: Our hard work on the new Web site was formally recognized by the Colorado Healthcare Communicators with a Bronze Leaf Award and three of the projects through Temple Emanuel’s Mitzvah Day, the congregation's annual social action event, benefited JFS clients.

November: Brad Nieder, the Healthy Humorist, entertained senior residents and their families at Berkshires at Lowry during a Colorado Senior Connections event. Our supporters came forth with great generosity at Thanksgiving to help us provide holiday meals to hundreds in need and we announced our Reel Hope movie. JFS at Home was also a sponsor of the Young@Heart Chorus’s “Alive and Well” performance.

December: Westword held a holiday food, toiletries, and winter clothing drive for Family Safety Net clients and we recapped Reel Hope-Take 14, our annual movie fundraiser.

2010

January: We debuted “A Day in the Life of JFS” - our 2009 annual report. Gretchen Koplin of Allied Jewish Federation also shared her touching, personal account of how Rabbi Baskin, the JFS community chaplain, supported her during her difficult battle with cancer.

February: We wrote several posts about various disabilities topics for Jewish Disabilities Awareness Month. We also mourned the passing of Audrey Reich, a JFS Group Home resident, and announced the transformation of the Weinberg Food Pantry into a client choice system.

March: We announced our needs of food, time, and money to help provide hundreds of Passover meals for our clients, celebrated a client’s 89th birthday, and showed you some new, simple ways to support JFS by shopping. Then we ended the month by sharing some Passover successes and recipes.

Thank you to all our loyal readers for your continued support! Please subscribe to our blog so you never miss a post, leave comments and feedback, and recommend this blog to your friends and coworkers!

Happy Passover from JFS!

Jewish Family Service and the Synagogue Council of Greater Denver partnered again this year to provide foods needed for a complete Passover Seder to families in need in our community through the Passover Project. Each meal included a kosher chicken as well as other necessary (and Kosher for Passover) items such as matzo, matzo meal, gefilte fish, candles, eggs, and fresh produce. This program is designed to help those families who would normally prepare a Seder for themselves, but at the present time do not have the resources to do so.

Thank you to all of you who answered our call for donations. With your generous support we were able to provide 75 Seder meals to 143 individuals. Also, thanks to all the volunteers who helped pack the meals, distribute them through the Pantry, and deliver them to homebound clients!

In addition, JFS will conduct 28 Passover services in March and April in metro Denver and five in Boulder for socially isolated Jewish adults. The metro Denver services will be for Jewish residents of long-term care facilities, assisted living facilities, a mental health center, and several correctional institutions. The Boulder services will be for residents of five senior facilities. Thanks to all our volunteer para-chaplains who will help lead a record number of services this year!

All of us at JFS wish you and your family a happy and meaningful Passover! To help with your Passover meal preparations, check out these recipes for Haroset (apple mixture) and Banana Passover Cake.

JFS Passover Holiday Schedule
Monday, March 29th: Close at 2 p.m.
Tuesday, March 30th and Wednesday, March 31st: Closed
Monday, April 5th and Tuesday, April 6th: Closed

We've Got Mail!

"Thank you so very much for helping my family (even though we are not Jewish). Your help with rent kept us off of the streets and in our home, which is much safer and warmer!!!" -Appreciative Family Safety Net Client

89 and Thriving! Happy Birthday, Adele!

Happy Birthday to Adele Sollender, JFS Senior Solutions and JFS at Home client, who celebrated her 89th birthday earlier this month! Adele receives a variety of in-home services through JFS that allow her to remain independent in her own home. Since Adele's only relatives live in Europe, JFS has become her extended family. You can learn more about Adele's story and how much she values the help she receives from JFS in this touching video.

As you can see, Adele was very excited to celebrate with her birthday!

Happy Birthday, Adele! Thanks to Mirella for providing photos and telling us about this milestone in Adele's life.

Want some easy ways to support JFS? Just go shopping!

JFS has two new ways you can support our programs and services: purchase King Soopers reloadable gift cards or donate items to the Weinberg Food Pantry that are in high-demand each month.

King Soopers Neighborhood Reward Program

Help raise funds for JFS when you buy your groceries by purchasing a gift card from us in the amount of $20. Take your gift card to your King Soopers store and load more money on it before you start shopping. When your cashier finishes ringing up your order, just swipe your gift card like you would a credit card to pay for your groceries. After you have purchased your groceries, your balance will show on your receipt. This is a “gift card” that you don’t throw away; when the balance gets low, reload the card. Every time JFS supporters reach $5,000 or more in reloads (as a group, not just you individually), we will receive a rebate check for 5% of the total amount. That's $250 for every $5,000! Click here to read more details about how the program works.

To purchase a King Soopers card for $20 from JFS at (303) 597.5000 x308 or online (put “King Soopers gift card” in the note field).

Weinberg Food Pantry Item of the Month
And while you're out shopping, please pick up a few extra items for the Food Pantry! At certain times of the year, the demand for some items is higher than others. Therefore, we have started a program to collect an "item of the month." The March item of the month is full-sized toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner, soap, razors, shaving cream, deodorant, and feminine products. You can often find these items at a discounted price at stores like Family Dollar, Big Lots, Costco, Sam's Club, Target, etc. You can drop them off in the food barrel at JFS, 3201 S. Tamarac Dr. in Denver throughout the month of March. We are open Monday through Friday, 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Make sure to come back to see what the Weinberg Food Pantry needs in April!