By Rachel Katz, Assistant Director of Jewish Family Services

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our city, Jewish Family Services (JFS) meets the challenge to adjust programs and implement new services to address the urgent and emerging needs of our local community.

Back in March, JFS halted all in-person programming and prioritized social services that focused on  urgent needs with new COVID-related protocols in place. Popsie’s Pantry is a great example of this. Starting March 12, the JFS office was closed to the community to reduce the risk of exposing our staff, clients, and volunteers to the virus. Therefore, Popsie’s Pantry became a contact-free, curbside, grocery-pickup program. From then and continuing today, clients call with their grocery requests and our team fills their orders. For older adults who are considered higher risk, we offer grocery delivery, particularly to those with limited mobility and transportation. Today, we are serving nearly double the households than pre-pandemic times and we are distributing four times the amount of food per household on average. Furthermore, Popsie’s Pantry is now able to provide perishable foods such as eggs, meat, chicken, turkey, and additional fresh produce.

Case Management with JFS Social Workers is another service area that looks drastically different today yet continues to serve the community in such an impactful way. The ability to forge and maintain connection with clients becomes much more challenging when done by phone or through virtual platforms but finding new ways to accomplish this was, and continues to be, imperative. The requests through Case Management for food support, assistance with applying for benefits, emotional and mental health support, and emergency financial relief continues to grow each month as we aid clients through new challenges they are facing amidst the pandemic.

Our KAVOD initiative, which serves the local Holocaust Survivor population, has also shifted drastically. While we are not currently able to offer programs that reduce social isolation, our staff have spent considerably more time engaging with survivors through individual outreach. As a result, we have seen a 300 percent increase in our Kavod Case Management initiative since the start of the pandemic.

Changes have also been made to our medical transportation program, the Libby & David Fogle Lunch Bunch, Parents’ Night Out, and the Birthday Club.

To help support these new efforts, the Jewish Federation launched the Community Relief Fund and initially granted $150,000 to Jewish Family Services. Additionally, our colleague Anna Price worked tirelessly with our staff to quickly apply for 7 new grants that awarded us a total of $92,837 in COVID-relief funding.

These new grants include C-CERF1, Glick Community Relief Fund, Emergency Food and Shelter Program - Phase 37, Emergency Food and Shelter Program - CARES, Indy Hunger Network's 2020 Grant Program for Food Pantries in collaboration with the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Program, The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (the Claims Conference) – Holocaust Survivor Covid-19 Urgent Response Fund2, and Seed the Dream Foundation and Sephardic Home for the Aged Foundation Emergency Aid Grant.

While many of these services are sustained for the time being, we anticipate that the community’s needs will grow and shift over the next few years. We remain committed to serving our clients in the most meaningful way possible, therefore we evaluate our programs and services on an ongoing basis to ensure success with the limited resources we have. We look forward to sharing more updates as we continue to adjust and meet the emerging needs of our community, and we thank you for strengthening the work we do through your support and through your kindness.

If you’d like to get involved, here are some ways you can help!

• Organize a food-drive amongst your friends and colleagues to collect donations for Popsie’s Pantry.
• Make a financial donation.
• Participate in Adopt-a-Family
• Spread awareness on social media. Follow JFS on Facebook and Instagram @indyjfs.
• Collect quarters to donate! There’s a current shortage and many need them to access laundry.
• Sign up to volunteer your time at https://jfgi.regfox.com/connectwith-purpose-volunteering.

Footnotes:

1. The Central Indiana COVID-19 Community Economic Relief Fund (C-CERF) is a community fund established by founding partners Lilly Endowment Inc., Central Indiana Community Foundation, Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation and United Way of Central Indiana to support human services organizations and the individuals and families they serve who are affected directly and indirectly by the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis.
2. This grant was specifically awarded to fund food programs.