“I think this place saved me.” — Avigail Sanderovitch, age 17 She and the demands of formal schooling weren’t a good match, and so she often skipped classes and entered the void of unstructured days and undefined goals — and all that can lead to. But at age 14, urged on by her sister, Avigail […]

“There’s no way I can’t help out and try to change things.” — Benjamin Schrager, Leadership Development Program participant At any one of Creating Connected Communities’ (CCC) myriad events for Atlanta-area children and families facing hardship, you may see Benjamin Schrager. There, he could be running an arts and crafts table — or handing out food, […]

“I’m alone and there is no one. So it’s nice when someone thinks about me” — Sarah, age 86 She was a geologist for decades in Kyiv, working in an exacting field surrounded by colleagues, and beyond them a social circle that nourished her. But 16 years ago, facing serious surgery at age 70 and with […]

“For the first time, I have economic independence.” — Shramilla, age 23, of Mokhada, India She attended a government-sponsored training program to learn how to sew, believing that it would equip her to move on from menial jobs that paid little. But in Palghar, a district just north of Mumbai in India, there was no […]

“I want to be a pioneer in my family and culture.” — Hanna Avera, daughter of Ethiopian olim in Israel Her parents arrived in 1991 as part of Operation Solomon, the historic airlift that brought thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. She was born two years later, one foot in modern Israeli society — and […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

“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 […]

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund   The call jarred him. An elderly woman from Jaffa was on the other end, asking for a Friday night Shabbat meal. “It wasn’t an easy conversation,” said Matan Asulin. “It was the first time I heard someone like that asking for food. But if you […]