Sunday night was the graduation of this year’s cohort of Diller Teen Fellows. This group of 20, who have been together with a group of teens from our Partnership2Gether Region of Karmiel and Misgav as part of a leadership development program, will travel to Israel in a few weeks. Their originally scheduled trip this summer had to be rescheduled due to Operation Protective Edge. We all should be excited for what they are about to experience. What a great investment in our teens by our Federation!
Monday night, a group of Federation volunteer and professional leaders met with the residents of our Moishe House. The Moishe House on Murray Hill Avenue is a rented home with four “twenty something year olds” who program for other “twenty something year olds” in our Jewish community. Sitting with them and hearing the number of programs and the reach they have had to both supplement and collaborate with our other young adult outreach programs (Shalom Pittsburgh, the Federation’s Young Adult Division and JBURGH) was inspiring. What a great investment in our community’s young adults by our Federation!
Thursday night, the members of the Steeltree Fund met to decide on new allocations. Steeltree is for young adult donors who make an increase to their campaign commitment. Their mission states: “Donor-directed funding of social entrepreneurship projects that benefit the next generation and strengthen the continuity of the Pittsburgh Jewish community”. The way they came together at their meeting through a deliberate process demonstrated a sophisticated approach towards grant making. What a great investment in our community’s young leaders by our Federation!
I feel so energized after a week like this and I’ve only mentioned some of the things I experienced firsthand. I did not mention the workshop training by our Community Relations Council and the Israel Action Network on how to combat the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel. I did not mention the Wechsler Leadership Development Institute participants who learned about the work of the Jewish Association on Aging and Jewish Family and Children’s Service. I did not mention the meeting the Federation held with our largest organizational participants in our Jewish Community Health Plan. I didn’t mention the meeting we held with the Executive Directors of the Federation’s ten Beneficiary Agencies where we talked about important issues to each of our institutions and our community.
All of this and even more in just the past week. I can’t wait for next week to come.
Shabbat Shalom. Hope to see you or your children or grandchildren at Vodka Latke tomorrow night.
P.S. I used the hyperlinks above so you can click through to see more information about all of these Federation funded programs.