Grants to agencies keep elderly poor ‘Safe at Home'
Jewish Family Service of MetroWest and Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest will share a $100,000 grant in support of low-income, mostly homebound Jewish seniors seeking to maintain independent lifestyles.
The two organizations are beneficiary agencies of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey.
The Jewish Funders Network — an international organization of family foundations, public philanthropies, and individuals that is dedicated to advancing the quality and growth of philanthropy rooted in Jewish values — and the Maryland-based Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation Matching Grants Initiative for the Jewish Elderly Poor together provided $50,000. The Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest secured a matching donation from Paul and Helen Craig Lappe of Morristown.
The joint undertaking, known as Safe at Home, consists of two projects: JFS' HouseCalls and JVS' At Home Services.
According to JVS executive director Dr. Len Schneider, his organization's component consists of two programs designed to allow seniors to remain in their own homes in the absence of or as a supplement to family support. Caregiving Companions provides companionship and non-medical assistance such as light housekeeping, meal preparation, medication reminders, and accompaniment to medical appointments and shopping. In the second program, Home Maintenance Solutions, handymen trained and employed by JVS perform basic repairs and services, including changing light bulbs or installing "grab bars," smoke detectors, or user-friendly horizontal door openers for those who cannot use round doorknobs.
Schneider said JVS will use its share of the grant to create a subsidy fund that would enable the Jewish elderly poor "to benefit from our service where they might not be able to afford the full-rate structure which, while it is very competitive and below market, is still a cost. So someone who is on a very fixed income…will have the opportunity to either have the full service paid for or a prorated amount paid for based on their financial situation."
Using personnel recruited and trained by JVS for the projects kills two birds with one stone, he said.
"As an agency that's involved in employment training, it's very much within the mission of JVS to take people, provide them with additional skills and with job opportunities based on those skills, and give them employment, while at the same time providing a service to the community."
JFS' HouseCalls service offers home visits by a JFS social worker and a geriatric nurse practitioner to the Jewish frail and homebound elderly living in their own homes or in senior housing under MetroWest Jewish community auspices.
JFS executive director Reuben Rotman estimated that the program will service 400 area seniors. The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey and the Grotta Fund for Senior Care also supply funding for HouseCalls.
The grant, he said, "was a unique collaboration between two local agencies, a foundation that's not based here in New Jersey…and our local Jewish community foundation and a private donor. It's very rare that we can bring all those aspects together, and that's what I think makes this an unusual grant, because of the funding and service partnerships between JVS and JFS."
For more information on these programs, call JFS at 973-765-9050 or JVS at 973-674-6330.
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