JVS board establishes Ronald I. Coun Center for Services to the Aging

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

The Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest board of trustees has established the Ronald I. Coun Center on Services to the Aging to honor the organization’s executive director on the occasion of his 40th anniversary with the agency.

The center, announced at the organization’s annual meeting in June 2005, is designed to enable JVS to better respond to the needs of the aging members of the MetroWest community and to develop and deliver a broad range of services for that growing population, reflecting Coun’s longstanding commitment to issues affecting older adults.

Coun, who has a reputation for modesty, fended off questions about the center to talk about the accomplishments of JVS, a beneficiary agency of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, and the challenges ahead.

“It was rather startling for me to get an honor like that,” Coun finally admitted. He said he was pleased just to be recognized for his many years of service, but when the announcement was made, he was “taken aback.” He downplayed his own contributions to praise others.

“A good deal of what they say [about me] really has to do with my staff. I’m lucky they’re here. I certainly wouldn’t be able to do this on my own, and I just feel they deserve a lot of the credit.”

“Someone who has loyally served the agency for 40 years, making it grow and become more widely effective, deserves recognition,” said Mel Wallerstein, president of the West Orange-based Wallerstein Foundation for Geriatric Life Improvement, which has committed $250,000 toward the center. “I thought it was a lovely gesture on the part of his staff when they came to me and said this is what they wanted to do. So we pledged some funds to back it up.”

“He is extremely deserving,” said Ruth Steckelman Popkin, president of JVS. “We picked this particular [method] because…throughout all his years, he’s always had a special place in his heart for the aging. His work throughout the community and the state — inside the Jewish community and outside it — has really put the agency on the map.

“Everyone has such high regard for him,” Popkin said. “We wanted to do something for him because he never does anything for himself. He’s one of those people who always looks to make everybody’s life better…. He’s a very humble and wonderful person and deserving of every commendation, and we wanted to do it in a way that his name would be there forever and ever.”

The Newark-born Coun joined JVS in 1965 as a staff counselor, managing the agency’s work center at Daughters of Israel. “When I first came here, I considered the job a jumping-off point for my career,” he said. He helped design and develop the JVS Work Center on Aging, the first vocational rehabilitation program in New Jersey to serve people with disabilities over the age of 55.

The center becomes the central location for several programs that offer different levels of assistance to specific segments of the MetroWest community. These include Maturity Works, a specialized job placement services for unemployed and underemployed individuals aged 45-70; Citizenship Assistance and Case Management Services for Older Refugees and Immigrants, designed to provide preparation and “survival” English-language instruction through classes and workshops; the JVS Work Activity Center at Daughters of Israel in West Orange, which will offer vocational rehabilitation and social support for residents and day program participants at DOI; and the JVS Work Center on Aging, for vocational rehabilitation, case management, social support, skills training, and job placement services for the disabled over the age of 55. Also on the center’s roster are JVS Caregiving Companions, for nonmedical care and companionship services provided at home to the frail elderly and disabled individuals; JVS Home Maintenance Solutions, which will provide basic home repair and maintenance services for the frail elderly and disabled individuals; and JVS Volunteer Corps, through which retired seniors will serve as tutors and mentors for those in need of ESL and interview skills.

“Giving the professional services is incredibly important,” Coun said, keeping to the philosophies of the JVS. “But you have a responsibility as a healer to advocate as well. There’s nobody who’s a better reporter of the needs of these people than the people who serve them. And it’s not enough to do a good job. You’ve got to push for that job, you’ve got to advocate for those people, and you’ve got to bring their needs to the public — and that’s part of being a responsible professional.

“For me, it’s been a great combination of [services for the] Jewish community, which of course is why I came here,” said Coun. “JVS is known as a community agency, and I can work out my civil rights feelings and my civil liberties feelings and my social justice feelings — which come out of the Jewish ethos — and I can do that on this job. There aren’t many jobs where you can do that.”

Ron Kaplan can be reached at RKaplan@njjewishnews.com.

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