“jGirls+ allowed me to claim creativity and expression as part of my identity.”

— Aliza Abusch-Magder, a junior at Columbia University

She remembers being in Jewish summer camp and writing an opinion piece about an issue of religious observance there. “It was horrible, I was 14,” she says.

But it defined her as a young teen anxious to express a point of view through her own gender lens. That’s not so surprising, considering that Aliza Abusch-Magder is the daughter of two progressive Jewish educators who encouraged her to find her voice and a place for it.

As a sophomore in high school in 2016, she found that place. jGirls+ Magazine was in its start-up phases and Aliza became a contributor and a member of its first editorial board — helping to launch jGirls+ as a digital magazine by and for an entire generation of self-identifying Jewish female and non-binary teens. jGirls+ is a GPF grantee.

“It was a formative experience for me,” says Aliza, now a junior at Columbia University in New York, studying English and Gender and Women’s Studies. “There wasn’t a dedicated platform for young Jewish women and non-binary folx to express themselves and to be taken seriously. We were going to change that.”

jGirls+ is the brainchild of Elizabeth Mandel — its Founder and Executive Director. She was informed by her experience as a documentary filmmaker, writer and community activist in the gender equity and Jewish communal spaces as she identified a void and sought to fill it by giving Jewish teen girls room and validation.

“I envisioned a project that told girls, we want you, we value your voices, we believe in what you have to say, you matter,” Elizabeth says.

Since its founding, jGirls+ has grown in reach and form. In September, for instance, Elizabeth announced the publication of Salt and Honey: Jewish Teens on Feminism, Creativity and Tradition. It is a book featuring 78 works by 62 jGirls+ contributors, including Aliza, voicing “their celebrations and challenges, their anger and their eagerness in essays, poetry, and visual art.”

Although she has now aged out of jGirls+’s cohort of editors and contributors, Aliza continues her involvement through the Jewish Feminist Alumnae Network, a collaboration between jGirls+ and the Jewish Women’s Archive’s Rising Voices Fellowship.

“jGirls+ allowed me to claim creativity and expression as part of my identity,” Aliza says. “I have a fundamental core belief to engage in the world and I want to contribute in a positive way. That is an implicit part of what jGirls+ is all about.”

“I was made to feel confident in myself and my potential.”

— Jonathan Escobar, asylee, age 23

He remembers the night he left home in Guatemala, aiming to escape frequent anti-gay threats against him and the indifference of authorities.

“It was 3 a.m. and I woke my mother and said, ‘I’m leaving.’ I didn’t cry at this moment. I didn’t want her to know how difficult it was for me. But I cried like a baby when the taxi came and I got in.”

A few days and three bus rides later, Jonathan Escobar reached the U.S. border with a duffel bag and presented himself for asylum.

For months, he lived in an immigration center until officials allowed him to make his way to New York City and the embrace of an aunt and uncle who turned their basement in Queens into a living space.

“Sometimes it was hard to smile, but I always tried,” Jonathan says now of those days in 2018. “All I knew is that I had to take all the opportunities coming to me that I could.”

It was while taking an English language class that he learned about Emma’s Torch, the Brooklyn-based restaurant-as-social-enterprise that trains refugees, asylees and survivors of human trafficking in the culinary arts — to equip them for careers and an upward trajectory. Emma’s Torch is a GPF grantee.

“I tried to learn everything,” Jonathan says of the three-month program at Emma’s Torch. “I was glowing the whole time. I wasn’t defined there by my past and my trauma. I was made to feel confident in myself and my potential and the future.”

And that is one of the main objectives of Emma’s Torch, says Kerry Brodie, its Founder and Executive Director.

“Our students have overcome what can only be described as the worst of humanity. But that’s not the defining characteristic of any of them. They are unique individuals with hopes and dreams.

“We try to be as forward-looking as possible to restore that dignity and humanity. I’m constantly inspired by the resilience of our students and by their optimism.”

As of this fall, 177 individuals have graduated from the Emma’s Torch program since it began. And that includes Jonathan, now 23, who when GPF caught up him earlier this year, was cooking at a restaurant in Brooklyn, boasting about his chicken feet and spinach soup (“it’s high in collagen”), and looking to the future.

“At Emma’s Torch, I met a lot of people like me, and I learned to love all of them. Because, I knew how much it took for them to get to that place with me.”

“It’s hard to ask for help, I know, but you have to.”

— Diamond, a 32-year-old single mother of three

When Diamond’s daughter started menstruating, it wasn’t just a physical development. It was a financial one too.

Some background. Diamond was just 19 when she became a single mother and when family conflicts forced her and her infant daughter into the vortex of homelessness.

Time spent in shelters. Weeks sleeping on a friend’s floor. Eviction from a small apartment she somehow managed to get. Back to the homeless shelter.

Her story gets better, though. In 2018, Diamond secured Section 8 housing vouchers and when GPF caught up with her this past summer, she was in her own home in Indianapolis with her three children — two girls, ages 13 and 11, and a boy, age 4.

But the fact remains that she is dangerously low income, and with three children, every need — expected or not — can create financial chaos and put her family at severe risk once again.

“Now it’s me and my two daughters who need period products,” Diamond said. “The price is very high and to be a single mother of three, I have to make choices — food, utilities, or their needs? I can’t keep doing this all the time.”

According to I Support the Girls, a GPF grantee, the average cost of period products is a significant burden for anyone with financial struggles. And, costs can increase exponentially depending on any number of factors, including an individual’s menstrual flow, the number of menstruating people in a household, the absorbency level of the product … even the cost of new underwear or clothing stained from menstrual blood.

The list goes on and on. Government support programs, such as SNAP and WIC for individuals and families in need, do not allow funds to be used for the purchase of period products, and some states tax them.

Due to these realities and her circumstances, Diamond receives a supply of period and personal hygiene products for herself and her daughters from I Support the Girls. The organization’s overall mission is to collect and distribute essential items such as bras, underwear and menstrual hygiene products to women and folx experiencing homelessness, impoverishment, or distress — and by so doing, giving them dignity and peace of mind.

“For the recipient, sometimes the small things are the big things — whether it is a bra, a tampon, a soccer ball, or a hot meal — and these make an enormous difference,” says Dana Marlowe, Founder and Executive Director of I Support the Girls.

Diamond calls the supply an “I Support the Girls goodie box,” one that arrives every few months to fill the gap and ease the burden and worry. “They have my back,” she says. “It’s hard to ask for help, I know, but you have to.”

For individuals in emotional distress — including those with suicidal tendencies — an empathetic advocate trained to gauge the severeness of need can be a bridge to a positive outcome. Sahar — a GPF grantee — is a volunteer-driven Israeli non-profit organization using a unique tech model as a form of intervention. GPF Co-Founder and Exec. Dir. Naomi Eisenberger speaks with Sahar CEO Yael Levy.

For underserved and vulnerable youth and families involved in the juvenile court or child welfare systems in Massachusetts, resources as varied as a bus fare, a laptop, even a bed, can tilt the balance toward improved systemic and personal outcomes. Anne Bader-Martin is a juvenile court attorney who founded One Can Help — a Good People Fund grantee — to provide missing but needed resources and create positive trajectories.

Barry Hoffner was on a personal trip to Mali in 2010, when he was struck by the lack of educational opportunities for young people in rural villages around Timbuktu. So he decided to build a school. Now, a dozen years and 16 schools later, his organization, Caravan to Class — a Good People Fund grantee — has grown from building schools … to supporting women’s literacy and sending young women to college through a scholarship fund named after his late wife, Jackie.

Barry speaks with GPF Executive Director — and host of Good People Talk — Naomi Eisenberger.