Grants ceremony 2010

If you were able to join us on Tuesday evening, then you know how wonderful this Foundation is and you were certainly impressed by their presentations and the decisions they made together. If you were not able to join us, we had a wonderful program that highlighted the accomplishments of these teens and the impact their decisions will make on our Jewish community. You are likely wondering, 'where did they make their donations?!' I am pleased to announce the following decisions:

Jewish Family Service Food Pantry: $3,000

Dallas Hebrew Free Loan Association (College loan program): $6,000

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) (Asylum cases support): $1,000

All of these donations represent the the time and consideration of the teens, who together reviewed 12 grant requests totalling over $100,000! They made these decisions with great care, and special concern for the people who would be impacted by the funds.

I think that you will agree that with these teens as the rising leaders in our community, we are in for a bright future.

May update

It's been pretty quiet on the blog recently... the Foundation has been hard at work to determine where to allocate their funds. May's meeting was our last for this Foundation group, and it was an interesting process! We started reviewing all of the grant applications just to make sure that we all were clear about the organizations and the grant requests. We then moved on to each person casting an anonymous vote for each grant request. Once we tallied up the first round, the discussions began. Interesting views came to light and each person was given opportunities to weigh in as the process moved forward. The group selected three of the organizations rather early on in the process. I personally thought, 'that did not take as long as i thought it would...' but the group was far from done! As they discussed how to allocate the $10,000 to these three organizations, I was very impressed by their reasoning, the respect they had for each other, and the careful considerations of the individuals who would be impacted by their dollars. It was a genuine display of teens with heart and mind focused on the greater good.

I know you are wondering, 'o.k., so where did they donate the money??' My lips are sealed (as it were) until the answers are revealed at tonight's grants ceremony. If you are planning to attend, I know that you will be impressed and inspired by the work the teens have done this year. I know that you will learn something about giving, the Jewish world, and why we should feel good about these teens assuming positions of leadership in our community.

Stay tuned to learn about where the funds were donated!