Every year, our community steps up to ensure that JF&CS clients can celebrate a meaningful Passover holiday. Several initiatives made this a reality for many isolated clients throughout the GTA. 

This year, we launched our new Mitzvah Gifts program through which we could offer our vulnerable community members several crucial supports. Clients enjoyed tickets to community seders which provided a safe place to reconnect to their roots and community, Seders-in-a-Box which included a fulsome seder meal, and Kosher for Passover groceries which made it more affordable to observe the entire eight days of Passover. Thanks to your generosity, we raised over $20,000 and helped over 500 individuals and families celebrate this important holiday. 

We appreciate all our community members and donors who came together to enrich the Passover holidays for our clients.

JF&CS recently hosted an evening reception to honour our longstanding donors. We proudly presented our updated donor wall in the client reception area at our Central Branch. 

It was so nice to welcome donors who have been giving to the agency for 30+ years who are recognized in the 1868 Legacy Society. Amongst the attendees were several of our past and current Presidents of JF&CS’ Board of Directors (pictured here), who were happy to come together and reconnect.

Donors were moved by the words of a former client whose life was positively impacted by JF&CS throughout his childhood and adult years. He credited his success as a business owner and community volunteer to the support he received from JF&CS during many pivotal life milestones.

We are so grateful for our incredible donors who play such a key role in supporting JF&CS’ work in the community. Thank you to those who celebrated with us! 

It’s almost summertime again, and that means JF&CS is busy preparing to help send children and youth to day and overnight camps equipped with all of the essentials they need to make lifelong friendships and memories.

For decades JF&CS’ Camp Program has been providing families with the opportunity to enjoy the many benefits of camp. The longevity and success of this program can be attributed to our generous donors, who step up each year to ensure no child is left behind.

Last summer’s successful Cringe Worthy event raised over $20,000, and together with other like-minded community members, we are able to send over 200 children to camp with the essentials they need.

JF&CS is getting ready for our 2nd annual summer camp shop. This year, we are helping more children and youth attend day and overnight camps. These excited campers need basic camp essentials, such as a sleeping bag, a duffle bag, toiletries, summer clothing and other camp gear.

We are overwhelmed by the community’s response to help these families. Whether it is by creating beautiful camp gift baskets as Bat Mitzvah centre pieces (pictured here), or choosing camp as a Tikun Olam project, together we are able to help those in need.

One first-time client shared with her social worker how she was very moved by the generosity of our community and by the dignified manner in which we are helping her family. She added how much it meant to her to receive the kindness from our agency especially given the war in Israel. The client did not know how she was going to provide camp items for her 2 boys and is thrilled to attend our camp shop where she will receive duffels, sleeping bags, gift cards and other camp items available.

It is not too late to support our Camp programs. Please click here to give a Camp Mitzvah Gift through our Camp Tuck Shop.

On June 18, JF&CS will be hosting a forum event titled When to Worry About Worry. We will be hearing from keynote speakers Dr. Rosalie Steinberg and Dr. Karen Wang, as well as a panel of other participating professionals, on the topic of Youth and Anxiety in a Post Pandemic World.

This event, and other programs such as these, have been generously funded by the Freda Manson Bacher Trust for years. “My mother, Freda Manson Bacher, was a lifelong supporter of Jewish Family and Child Service,” Barbara (Bunny) Saul shares about the Trust. “Her association with this agency began when, as a graduate professional social worker, she was hired by JF&CS, where she continued to work until her first child was born. Even while staying home with her children, and for many years thereafter, she continued to be active in JF&CS as a valuable board member and advocate of the services provided by it. When my mother passed away in 1995, her family decided to set up a fund in her name at the Jewish Family & Child Service.” 

The Freda Manson Bacher Trust supports endeavours to protect and enhance the lives of families, and to invest in the future well-being of all children. “It seems most appropriate to use the money in her fund to sponsor this forum at a time when so many adolescents are facing a slew of post-pandemic anxieties as well as those brought about by the misuse of technology and the rise of antisemitism. I am sure that my mother would be extremely pleased to know that her legacy and dedication to helping parents and teenagers continue to this day. I thank you all for allowing me to share a little bit of my mother’s life and aspirations in the hope that this evening will assist you and your teenage children in pursuing a healthy, meaningful life not only now but in the many years to come.”

This event is open to the community. If you want to register, please email Shawna Sidney at SSidney@jfandcs.com or call 416-638-7800 X 6215.

This year’s Walk with Israel, hosted by UJA on June 9, 2024, will commemorate the 55th Anniversary of Toronto’s Walk. JF&CS is proud to participate again this year, and we encourage our stakeholders to join us as we feel empowered by the strength of our united community. The overarching message about this year’s Walk is the importance of having our community and our allies “walking in solidarity.”

All details, including registration, can be found online at https://www.walkwithisrael.com/

We hope to see our community members at the Walk, and don’t forget to stop by the JF&CS booth if you attend!

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