A vote for Jordan is a vote for us!

Jordan Sills

We need your VOTE! Jewish Community Heroes – a new UJC interactive user generated content project celebrates the volunteer heroes in our Community. YAD’s Immediate Past President Jordan Sills has been nominated for his volunteer work within the San Francisco Jewish Community.

The winner of Jewish Community Hero project will receive $25,000 to be used as an investment in their community project or non-profit effort via his or her local Jewish Federation, or another recognized 501(c)3 charitable entity. Let’s vote for Jordan and help him bring the prize to San Francisco!

VOTE NOW (and every day until October 8 – don’t worry it is allowed by the rules) and remember to tell all your friends.

Finding Purpose Through Philanthropy

One of our new regular features at Challah Back is Meet the Board, where you get to “meet” this year’s YAD Board. Find out why so many people get involved in YAD and what inspires them!

While I have been in the Bay Area for 12 years, I only recently became involved with YAD. After moving here, I became active in philanthropy work and in supporting the arts. I decided to change my focus as to how I was spending my time and where I giving back after my grandmother’s passing. It was at that time that I felt a strong need to get involved in the Jewish community and more importantly to stay connected to her in a meaningful way.

The question for me though was, “How?” That was when I saw the information posted for Club Fed, which looked like the right place for me to get my feet wet. And my instinct was right. Not having a lot of relationships in the Jewish community, Club Fed seemed like the right setting for me because it was more intimate. Walking into the first session was overwhelming, but within minutes I felt comfortable. In Club Fed, I learned so much about the Federation, giving me a new sense of appreciation and enthusiasm to get more involved. I also met some pretty cool people and thus began my new found interest in the Federation. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that I didn’t know about this amazing community until so recently!

This year I am proud to be serving on the Executive Committee as Co-Vice President of Community Building. Our events — including Blue Mondays, Latke Ball, Shabbat dinners and Summer Sizzle — are often the first face of YAD. With that in mind, it is critical that we put on successful, welcoming events that reach out to all types of people in our community. Being that gateway to someone’s first experience to YAD makes our role even more important as our impact is not only immediate, but also long term. If someone has a great experience with us, then they will be back, possibly bring a friend and continue supporting the Federation for many years to come.

It has been a tremendous year and we are only halfway there! Our Blue Mondays reign in an average of 200 attendees and have raised more than $4,000 thus far. Latke Ball beat all records this year with more than 1,000 guests and a 23.5 percent increase in net revenue. We also had an overwhelming response to our Shabbat dinners the last couple months. In addition to raising all kinds of cash for the community and making an impact, our events are the place to be and be seen!

I couldn’t be prouder and more appreciative of the Community Building Team. A special thank you to all of you as well as to Jordan and Lory. My heart is full of happiness and contentment knowing that I have made a difference in the Jewish community in my own way. Mostly, I feel I’ve been able fulfill a commitment to my grandmother by expanding who I am and discovering the importance of my heritage. Thank you for the opportunity to serve on the board and for the lifelong friendships I have made.

Andrea Skor

Here’s to more amazing events and even more giving in 2009!

Andrea Skor
Co-Vice President for Community Building
Young Adults Division Board

More…

• Subscribe to Challah Back, the YAD blog
• Join the YAD mailing list
• Check out our upcoming events
• Get involved with YAD
• Join our Facebook group
• Meet the 2008-2009 YAD Board

You can also reach us by phone at 415.512.6280 or email yad@sfjcf.org.

YAD Makes an Impact on the World at Large

Did you know….

• Ten percent of Jews in the Bay Area live below the poverty line.
• More than 10,000 Jewish elderly in the Bay Area need home health care, assisted living or residential services, and one-third rely on a Jewish organization to provide it.
• One in every eight children has a disability or learning difference.
• The Jewish Community Federation funds a full range of social services including vocational training; assisting seniors, children with special needs and victims of domestic violence; and more.
• The Jewish Federation was one of the first responders to Hurricane Katrina and the natural disasters in Burma and China.
• The Federation focuses on addressing humanitarian emergencies, Jewish and non-Jewish throughout the world.
• YAD, the Young Adults Division of the Federation, raised more than $250,000 toward these programs last year.

If this is news to you, it wouldn’t surprise me. San Francisco’s YAD is known for its fabulous events and well subscribed leadership programs so sometimes the core mission of the parent organization, the Jewish Community Federation, gets lost in the shuffle. It certainly did for me.

Even as a member of the YAD Board last year, the Federation was a bit of an enigma. It wasn’t until I attended the national conference Washington 15 in the spring that I really understood the immensity of work the Federation does and the tremendous impact it has on our community — in San Francisco, nationally, in Israel and around the world.

Why go with this umbrella approach to tzedakah? Why not give to each organization directly and pick and choose? The short answer is that it would be impossible for any one of us to have the time or bandwidth to learn about all of the organizations needed to take care of the community as a whole. The Federation has teams of volunteers and staff who carefully pour through all of the information to optimize impact.

So what does this mean for YAD? Well, we still want to throw great parties, but we also want to give you the opportunity to have an impact on the world at large. To that end, the campaign team is working hard to create greater visibility of where the Federation funds go and the difference that they make. Basically connecting giving to mission.

That $18 you give to Federation instead of a bento box lunch can change the world. Literally.

• $7 pays for a college student to partake in a Shabbat dinner at a Hillel.
• $20 pays for a one-time resume-writing workshop for an unemployed Bay Area professional.
• $32 pays for a kosher Passover seder meal and service for a senior citizen.
• $80 pays for an emergency-call pendant enabling a senior to maintain independence while living at Menorah Park.
• $200 pays for 25 new books for a Jewish library in the Former Soviet Union.
• $365 pays for one month of pre-school for an at-risk Ethiopian-Israeli child.
• $5,000 pays for a teen to visit Israel.
• $15,435 pays for a child to attend a Jewish pre-school full-time at a JCC for a year.

So stay tuned for programming and information, and let us know what we can do to make the campaign more meaningful for you. You can reach me at [ sygoldstein AT yahoo DOT com]

Sharon Goldstein

Oh, and if you haven’t made your donation to Federation yet this year, please click here to do so.

As Jews, if we don’t take care of our own, who will?

Sharon Goldstein
Co-Vice President of Campaign
Young Adults Division Board

Local Takes Active Role in the Community

One of our new regular features at Challah Back is Meet the Board, where you get to “meet” this year’s YAD Board. Find out why so many people get involved in YAD and what inspires them!

As a San Francisco native, I grew up (whether I knew it or not) attending Federation-sponsored events and volunteering at Federation-funded organizations. And having worked at Federation both in the Bay Area and in Israel, I know how important Federation’s work is globally. I consider my involvement on the YAD Board as the most important installment in my history of involvement with Federation. By building a strong young adult community, we ensure a strong future generation of Jewish leaders here in the Bay Area.

My love affair with Federation began all the way back in the summer of 1998. A fresh-faced sophomore at UC Berkeley already waste-deep in Israel-related campus activism, I decided that the Federation’s Israel Center was a perfect place to spend my summer. Through the Kohn Summer Intern Program (a program of the Federation-sponsored Jewish Vocational Services), I spent two months developing Israel-relating programs for use on college campuses. When I graduated from Cal in 2000, I took a full-time campus outreach position at the Israel Center.

All the while, I was also preparing to move to Israel the following year to participate in Project Otzma, a program jointly administered by the Jewish Agency for Israel, United Jewish Communities, and — you guessed it — the SF Federation. It was during my year on Project Otzma that I got to see first-hand the amazing work our Federation does in Israel. I worked in non-profit, grass roots organizations such as Hafuch al HaFuch that use Federation funds to serve the vital needs of Israel’s disadvantaged communities, and with the municipalities SF Federation’s sister communities in the Upper Galilee.

Benny Klafter (right) performing community service with a student group in Kiryat Shmona, Israel.

Upon my return to the Bay Area, I redoubled my campus outreach efforts on behalf of the Israel Center. It was ultimately only the tantalizing allure of unknown adventure in far-flung, exotic locales (law school in Davis) that succeeded in tearing me away from my work at Federation. Since returning to the city, I’ve continued to devote much time and energy to Federation.

My roll on the board this year is as Shabbat and Holiday Chair. While YAD puts on some amazing social events and offers an array of great volunteer opportunities, some of us in the community want to see more options for the celebration of Shabbats and holidays. Through our periodic YAD Shabbats — hosted by YAD members in their homes — and upcoming holiday events, we hope to add a new and exciting dimension to YAD’s programming.

Benny Klafter

The first YAD Community Shabbat of the year will take place Dec. 19. E-mail us if you are interested in attending future Shabbats, or (even better!) in hosting one.

Benny Klafter
Shabbat and Holiday Chair
Young Adults Division Board