We at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation are excited to announce that we have awarded more than $230,000 in grants to expand and deepen engagement opportunities for families raising Jewish children across North America.
The selected initiatives emphasize building social connections over time among families raising Jewish children as well as connecting families to local opportunities to engage in Jewish life, programming, or learning.
The PJ Library Alliance Engagement Grants for Implementing Partners, ranging in size from $4,000-$25,000, were selected from a pool of 55 applications and awarded to 15 PJ Library communities. The applications were reviewed by our staff as well as external reviewers.
These grants are the first stage in a five-year strategy to extend Jewish engagement in North America through the support of the newly-formed PJ Library Alliance. Our partners in the Alliance are the William Davidson Foundation; the Jim Joseph Foundation; the William and Audrey Farber Philanthropic Fund; the Howard and Geraldine Polinger Family Foundation; Walter, Arnee, Sarah and Aaron Winshall; the Susser Family Trust; and an anonymous partner.
This year’s selected initiatives, listed below, are divided into three categories; each category will serve as a community of practice, offering ongoing peer support and collective learning.
We look forward to working with these partners and seeing all of their exciting initiatives come to life.
On-Going Neighborhood Programming
- PJ Family Fun Shabbat, Congregation Children of Israel, Athens, GA
Selected PJ Library families will invite less-engaged PJ families as guests to three Shabbat dinners in their homes, culminating in a large group Havdalah event. Prior to each dinner, participating families will have opportunities to make challah, challah covers, candlesticks, and wine cups for their home.
- PJ Library Power Hour, Shalom Austin, Austin, TX
Walk, Talk, Dine, Wine, Read! Opportunities for PJ parents (with or without children) to connect through weekly hour offerings of power walks, coffee shop chats, quick lunches, and happy hours.
- PJ Library WOW, Columbia Jewish Federation, Columbia, SC
PJ Without Walls brings on-going social interactions and quality Jewish programming to families who live outside the epicenter of Columbia through quarterly Shabbat playtimes and special holiday programs in public space.
- PJ Connect, Jewish Federation of Lane County, Eugene, OR
A collaboration with local grassroots Jewish community organizations to engage unaffiliated families in meaningful Jewish-themed events via three initiatives: monthly structured programs, twice-monthly social drop-in group, and a series of home-based "just-in-time" activities available from a lending library.
- PJ Library Sunday Funday TOTS, UJA Federation of Greenwich, Greenwich, CT
A monthly “drop-in” program for parents with young children, designed to reach less-engaged families by offering early childhood enrichment programs in convenient and welcoming venues featuring Jewish themes, social time for parents, and a “special guest” from a different Jewish organization each month.
- Midtown Mishpacha, Memphis Jewish Federation, Memphis, TN
A monthly interactive series for unaffiliated Jewish families who live in the mid-town area of Memphis, with a goal of empowering families to bring more Judaism into their homes and to feel a sense of Jewish community within the geographic area that they live.
- Neighborhood Story and Song, Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, Portland, OR
A multi-session, drop-in family program highlighting PJ Library books and Jewish songs taking place in five neighborhoods. Designed to deepen the Jewish connections of current PJ subscribers, identify new subscribers, and create micro-communities of families with young children living in close proximity.
- PJ Library Outreach Adventures, Havurah Shir Hadash, Southern OR
A collaboration of two synagogues to build community among families by offering professionally-facilitated interactive programming: a monthly Tot Shabbat with light meal, and twice monthly Sunday morning public space programming.
Collaborative Partner Initiatives
- Denver Metro Collaborative Family Engagement, JEWISHcolorado, Denver, CO
A collaboration with 17 Jewish community organizations within three geographic areas to create impactful programming to reach new, diverse audiences. Public space kick-off programs are followed by ongoing opportunities for families to interact with one another.
- Plug Into PJ, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, Toronto, ON
Ten Jewish community organizations will independently host a series of five innovative programs in public and Jewish space, designed to introduce families to each other and to local Jewish professionals and educators. Professional development offered by PJ Library will ensure high quality program design.
Community Connectors
- Emerge, Center for Jewish Education, Inc., Baltimore, MD
Two “Emerge” connectors will build community among neighborhood-based family cohorts with new babies, each offering a monthly series of fun family experiences, connecting families with each other between programs, providing take-home enrichment, and connecting them to other local Jewish resources.
- PJ Connect!, Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston, Boston, MA
A Metro North neighborhood-based hub connector will be trained to facilitate friendships, find new families, host Shabbat hands-on workshops, and support families to host small group Shabbat dinners. The hub connector will also convene a parent host committee and organize three regional Shabbat dinners.
- PJ Library Engagement Ambassadors, Jewish Federation of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH
Three engagement ambassadors will build community and develop trusted relationships with 90 under-connected families using social media, face-to-face coffee dates, and neighborhood-based programming. PJ Library will hire, train, supervise, and empower the ambassadors.
- Community Connector Pilot Program, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Four community connectors will build authentic, peer-to-peer relationships with new parents of children ages 6 months to two years old through personal outreach and unique, intimate neighborhood programs that appeal to a variety of interests.
- PJ Library Connect, Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester, Rochester, NY
Four selected connector families will each create a friendship circle of three to five marginally-engaged families to take part in nine Jewish-themed points of connection. PJ Library will develop all programming and train connector families to implement quality friendship circle activities.
July 1, 2015