Courtesy of JFS.
Liz Vogel, Jewish Family Service’s CEO, spoke about the organization’s successes at JFS’s Annual Meeting on March 25
Submitted by JFS
“Word is out, and we served a record number of people last year,” said Jewish Family Service CEO Liz Vogel, speaking at Jewish Family Service’s Annual Meeting. “Internally, we called it our ‘year of excellence’ as we focused on meeting demand with exceptional quality.”
This year’s meeting was held on March 25 at the Mayerson JCC, and had impressive turnout. It featured Vogel, as well as two board presidents, Joanne Grossman, just finishing her two-year term and Ellen Feld, MD, who assumed her new role at the meeting. All focused on this year’s theme: One Community Thriving, One Person at a Time, showcasing the person-centered care JFS is committed to, from youth mental health to support for elderly adults aging at home.
Vogel’s overview offered an insightful glimpse into a growing, effective organization committed to meeting the Jewish community’s changing needs, across every socioeconomic class and every branch of Judaism. JFS’s services, she said, are available to all: “Thanks to strong community support, we can still afford to remove economic barriers to accessing our services and also invest in high performers to deliver best-in-class care.”
Vogel pointed out the problem of food insecurity as an increased community need, and how JFS is able to meet that need, giving away a record amount of groceries this past year through JFS’s Heldman Family Food Pantry at the Barbash Family Vital Support Center in Clifton.
Other highlights included Ann Sutton Burke, JFS’s Chief Services Officer, giving out the Miriam Dettlebach Award for Outstanding Volunteer of the Year. This year’s winner was Charles Albers, one of the first individuals to step through the door of Jewish Family Service’s brand new Adult Day Services program when he enrolled his wife, Melisa, in 2023. Melisa had early-onset Alzheimer’s, and Charles had been her caregiver for some time. From the start, however, Charles knew that Melisa would need more intensive memory care, and this program gave him the time to find a safe, caring environment for Melisa. When she was eventually admitted to a long-term care facility, Charles decided to volunteer with Adult Day Services, because he wanted to give back. According to Burke, “Charles always demonstrates caring, patience and empathy toward our participants. Charles is also a role model, advisor and source of encouragement to other caregivers.” She also shared that he knows Oreos are especially favored by participants, and so when they are are on sale he always brings Oreos to Adult Day Services to share.
As is typical for Jewish Family Service, the meeting offered three outstanding videos that showed JFS’s impact on the community. The first explained the incredible and ongoing collaborative effort among Cincinnati’s Jewish organizations to support teen and young adult mental health during this moment of crisis, exemplified by the success of JFS’s mental health symposium, Resilient Minds: Empowering Jewish Youth to Thrive, which took place last November.
A second video told the story of Rabbi Barry Kogan, who attends JFS’s Adult Day Services, and how this program, despite being only a year old, has already garnered acclaim at the national level, winning a $145,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Association.
The last video shared the emotional story of how, last summer, a group of Holocaust survivors who regularly meet through Jewish Family Service’s Center for Holocaust Survivors, came together to write a letter to Jewish students suffering under the antisemitism and hatred on campuses since October 7. The letter gained attention nationally and locally, including in the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the survivors read it aloud to both Jewish students from Cincinnati Hillel, and at the one-year community commemoration of October 7 at Adath Israel Congregation.
Vogel ended by summing up the strength of the organization: “To close, Jewish Family Service is strong. In recent years, we’ve responded to the pandemic, a national mental health crisis, and October 7th. We’re ready to meet the current year’s changes as well.”
