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Spirit Club helping people with disabilities be more physically active

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As a support counselor at Jubilee Association of Maryland, Jared Ciner worked with the agency to provide services to adults with developmental disabilities. But when he began researching exercise programs for his clients, the University of Maryland graduate came up empty.

“I realized that all of the people I was working with at the agency had being more physically active listed as one of their goals,” Ciner said. “Meanwhile, I couldn’t find any resources or programs to encourage them to participate in or bring them to.”

That’s how Ciner founded Spirit Club. Opened in April 2013, the club offered fitness courses to adults with disabilities to encourage them to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Based in Kensington, Spirit Club has classes in locations in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and is seeking to expand to Baltimore.

Ciner — who is working with FX Studios, which built the corporate gym for Under Armour, to host classes at the Under Armour Performance Center at 10 Light Street and build a new center in Montgomery County — said he recently attended a Special Olympics conference where parents from Baltimore City and Baltimore and Howard counties packed a standing room-only hall.

“It’s a really big market,” said Ciner, who estimated that he received about 60 information cards from parents expressing interest in Spirit Club.

Ciner, who grew up in Denver before graduating from Maryland with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, said he first saw the value in fitness when he spent the summer after his junior year in Ethiopia, where he organized athletic programs for youth there.

Drawn by the plight of disabled adults, Ciner found a 2010 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that stated that obesity rates for adults with disabilities are 57 percent higher than rates for adults without disabilities.

“There are no fitness classes for them to participate in unless they’re extremely independent,” Ciner said. “A vast majority of people with disabilities take medication, and a lot of those medications cause weight gain as a side effect. Another reason is that the majority of people with disabilities are unemployed and therefore they’re even less active than the average person who is at least getting up and getting out of the house and going to work.”

Ciner’s first Spirit Club class drew six participants. Now, about 130 clients regularly attend exercise sessions.

“Once I was teaching it, I started to be less surprised [by the growth] because it was just clearly a valuable opportunity for people,” said Ciner, who has teamed with Sam Smith, a marathon runner with autism, and his roommate Justin Frevert to teach classes. “I could just tell that a majority of them had just been craving for an opportunity to exercise, but never had one.”

Ciner’s work caught the attention of Max Levitt, founder of Leveling the Playing Field, a multisport equipment donation business. Levitt recommended Spirit Club to The Good People Fund, and after speaking to Ciner and visiting Spirit Club in October, executive director and co-founder Naomi Eisenberger agreed to award Ciner a $5,000 grant.

“He really hit the bull’s-eye with us because he took his passion for exercise and paired that with what he was doing and working with that population,” Eisenberger said. “From what I saw when I was there, it was a very popular program. The session that I saw was filled with many people with different disabilities, and they all seemed to be having a wonderful time.”

Ciner, who credits his wife, Gabriele, and mother, Anne, for helping him, said he finds daily inspiration from Smith, his co-founder who is a certified personal trainer and a marathon runner despite being autistic. Ciner said he also feels fortunate to work in a job he loves.

“I’ve found a good balance between working hard and making a living and making sure not to lose sight of the mission,” he said. “I find that if I let the mission drive my energy, that leads to positive things and success. It’s a great job and I couldn’t imagine doing anything that would be more fulfilling.”

 

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-gl-good-works-jared-ciner-fitness-developmental-disabilities-1130-20151129-story.html

New Push For The ‘Strangers In Your Midst’

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Tel Aviv — A baby whimpers in a crib and another cries on a mattress on the floor. A toddler nearby spits up his food, but Felicia Fori Koranteng, who runs Gan Felicia, a south Tel Aviv preschool, can’t attend to them because there are dozens of other infants and toddlers in need of her attention.

The two-room preschool, which serves up to 80 children of Israel’s 45,000 to 50,000 African asylum seekers, isn’t funded or regulated by any government agency because the children have no legal status in Israel, even if they were born here. In most cases their births haven’t been documented, and neither they nor their parents — some of them in Israel for more than a decade — receive the universal health coverage Israel provides to its citizens.

The babies and toddlers at Gan Felicia, a place that provides warmth if not attention, are crowded together in one room, the older kids in the other. There are almost no toys in the preschool, and no room to play, so the TV on the wall acts as a babysitter. A small gate keeps the children inside the rooms for their own safety. Their parents work from morning till night, often as house cleaners or food preparers in other cities, so the vast majority of the children are stuck inside the entire day, every day.

Today, though, 14 volunteers, most of them parents and students from the American School, have come to take some of the children out for an hour-and-a-half of fresh air at a nearby park. They’ve brought with them healthy snacks and the desire to give the 14 children they’re accompanying seems to be 14 volunteers and 14 children an abundance of hugs and personalized attention — something the preschool’s three or four full-time caregivers cannot provide.

“We’re about as grassroots as they come,” said Dianne Wier, a volunteer from Texas whose husband, a Lockheed employee, is stationed in Israel for a few years. “Their gan is heartbreaking,” she said, using the Hebrew word for preschool. “The children just crave attention. Here in the park they can run around, something they can’t do at the gan.”

The weekly visit by the American School volunteers is just one of the dozens of grassroots initiatives that have sprung up in Israel to assist the country’s asylum seekers. The projects range from legal aid and health clinics to adult education programs, community meals and women’s cooperatives.

The plight of Israel’s asylum seekers has been making headlines since the refugee/migrant crisis in Europe erupted this summer and Israelis began to debate whether they should provide shelter to some Syrian refugees.

Advocates for Israel’s asylum seekers insist that before Israel can consider taking in additional refugees, it needs to deal humanely with the ones already here.

“These asylum seekers are good, very honest people,” says Gideon Ben-Ami, who, with the help of the New Jersey-based Good People Fund, the Leket food bank, supermarkets and restaurants provides more than 100 tons of rescued food to 12 preschools for asylum seeker children as well as eight families who have been subjected to hate crimes or other traumas.

“For years Israel had an open border with the Sinai and allowed the refugees to come,” Ben Ami said. “They’re already here and we need to take care of them.”

Human rights groups say the Israeli government is making the lives of the asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom cannot be deported according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, unnecessarily difficult.

Israel “is a reluctant host to 46,437 African asylum seekers predominantly from Eritrea (73 percent) and Sudan (19 percent) and a small minority (8 percent) arriving from several other African countries,” according to the Tel Aviv-based African Refugee Development Center, which relies on volunteers to carry out its services.

The advocacy group says the asylum seekers “are denied basic rights and access to social services, and the government of Israel has employed various policies to pressure asylum seekers to leave.” These policies include indefinite arbitrary detention, refusal to accept and review asylum claims, limitation of access to basic state-sponsored services, incitement and coerced repatriation, according to ARDC.

ARDC notes that Israel’s High Court has twice affirmed that the state’s treatment of African asylum seekers “is unacceptable and violates fundamental laws concerning human dignity and liberty.” The court, it notes, “insisted on a comprehensive policy that seriously tackles this issue, but the government remains non-compliant.”

In response, an Israeli government official said, “the government has explained on numerous occasions its position regarding illegal migrants and will continue to take the necessary steps to address this issue.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has framed the issue as one that “is very grave and threatens the social fabric of society, our national security and our national identity” as a “Jewish and democratic state.”

Some groups have successfully petitioned the High Court to release more than 1,000 detainees at the Holot detention camp, a dismal place that houses Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers.

Other groups, like Faces of Exile (facesofexile.com), urge Israelis to sign petitions, lobby Knesset members, and volunteer with one of the organizations offering legal guidance, health services, and services to children.

The Hagar and Miriam Program counsels and supports pregnant women during and after their pregnancies. Volunteers include gynecologists, nurses, midwives, doulas, childbirth educators, lactation consultants as well as participants in Jewish Agency programs.

The Schoolhouse (schoolhouse.org.il) provides tutoring and training to adult asylum seekers in Tel Aviv and the Holot detention camp. At the Eritrean Women’s Center (eritreanwomenscenter.org), native Israelis, foreign volunteers and fellow asylum seekers educate female asylum seekers about women’s health issues and domestic abuse.

Last week, the Hartman Institute kicked off a fundraising campaign to establish a day care and learning center for children of African refugees aged 3 to 6. The center, which will be launched in collaboration with the Elifelet organization, which cares for 600 children and infants, will be open from 1:30 to 6:30 p.m. daily. Delivering food and a little spending money to an Eritrean family whose toddler died of malnutrition in Tel Aviv, Ben Ami bemoaned the lack of government services for asylum seekers.

“Four or five asylum seeker children have died from malnutrition. This shouldn’t be happening in a country that is fairly well-off. It says 36 times in the Torah that you should care for the stranger in your midst. How can we so easily forget that we were once the strangers?”

Seated in her one-room apartment, where a curtain separated the family’s beds from two sofas and a kitchenette, Hule Semere, the mother whose 10-month-old son died of malnutrition, said things in Israel are tough but even tougher in Eritrea.

“Here we don’t have health insurance so I couldn’t take the baby to the hospital,” she said. “But in Eritrea the government imprisoned my husband for six years. We can’t go back there until there is a change in government. At least here we can hope for a better future.”

“For You Were Once Strangers,” a documentary on the plight of Israel’s African asylum seekers, will be screened at the Chelsea Film Festival on Friday, Oct. 16 at 6 p.m. at the SVA Theater (333 W. 23rd St.). The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with the director Ruth Berdah-Canet. Chelseafilm.org.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/israel-news/new-push-strangers-your-midst

Idea Mensch Spotlight on Naomi Eisenberger– Executive Director of the Good People Fund

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“Set aside a quiet time, a quiet place and perhaps some good music and just think — let your mind wander. Some of my best insights come from this far too infrequent habit.”

Over the past 25 years, Naomi Eisenberger has provided management guidance and support to hundreds of individuals and nonprofits, to help them grow their great work, successfully build their infrastructure and increase their donor base. As the Managing Director of the Ziv Tzedakah Fund for more than 10 years, she was instrumental in working closely with its founder to guide its expansion and growth. In 2008, she co-founded and now serves as the Executive Director of the Good People Fund where, in addition to providing financial support, she also mentors Good People who have found creative ways to help those in need. She identifies visionaries doing great work on a personal scale and connects them with donors seeking meaningful ways to help those in need, with gifts both large and small. In keeping with a philosophy that the majority of donor dollars should be allocated towards programs, the Good People Fund itself maintains a lean operating budget to ensure a large percentage of donations are directed to grantees. The Good People Fund has been a GuideStar Exchange Gold Participant for several years.

Where did the idea for Good People Fund come from?

Prior to 2008, I had been very involved in Danny Siegel’s Ziv Tzedakah Fund where I served as Managing Director for more than ten years. When he decided to retire and opted to close the Fund I, and several others felt that there was still a critical need for the type of giving opportunities and philosophy that that organization represented. The Good People Fund was founded to support small grassroots organizations (many volunteer-run) engaged in repairing the world. At the center of each program is a visionary or Good People who have chosen to dedicate themselves to fixing some societal issue. Each of them can be considered an entrepreneur in their own way. For nearly 5 years I was the Fund’s only full-time employee and my salary (and most of our other overhead) was and is still paid by designated gifts, thus ensuring that donors’ gifts are used to help people in need with very little diverted for administrative overhead.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

Because we do so much work in Israel, a seven hour time difference from the East Coast, my day starts very early. The telephone is both my best friend and my worst enemy. It is a time sucker, but I find that the numerous conversations I have with our grantees, mentoring and coaching them, is when my creativity really kicks in. Telling the stories of our Good People to prospective donors, writing in my blog or producing other written materials are energizing activities that make the day fly by.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I have a unique set of skills I’ve developed throughout my working life which I have brought to the 25 years of interaction with small non-profits. While I was professionally trained to be a high school U.S. history teacher, I spent only a few years in that role before becoming a mom. It was then that my entrepreneurial instincts kicked in as I remained at home to raise two kids. To earn money and also satisfy that creative streak I worked as a plant doctor, used my love of cooking as a caterer, my needlework skills to build a needlepoint business during the height of that particular craze and revived a tired family business selling men’s and boys’ clothing. The grantees I work with all have unique problems and situations that need to be resolved. My business experience coupled with my creativity and love of networking allows me to offer them concrete advice on how best they can develop their work and operate with efficiency and transparency. For most of the programs we work with there is a very strong personal relationship, and we’re with them through the good times and the rough days as well. Our wish is that every program we work with outgrows us and that they can flourish without our funds and support.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

Crowdfunding has introduced the concept of giving to a much wider audience; no longer is it only people of considerable wealth who can have an impact. Modest sums of money matter which happens to be a critical piece of our philosophy–small actions, huge impacts .

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

Connecting people is a practice I do regularly. I am always thinking how can Person A help Person B? How can they help each other?

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

At one point in my career I worked part-time for a large institutional non-profit. The bureaucracy, the politics, the inability to work creatively were stifling! I knew then that I would always have to “do my own thing” if I was to survive in the work world.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

I would not recommend launching any new organization that relies on fundraising, at the same time a national financial crisis erupts!. We were all stunned by the events that unfolded in 2008 with the implosion of Lehman Brothers and Bernie Madoff’s extraordinary fraud. The names still elicit thoughts of a really bad movie from years ago. Those were challenging days to try to solicit donations.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Set aside a quiet time, a quiet place and perhaps some good music and just think — let your mind wander. Some of my best insights come from this far too infrequent habit.

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

Please explain how. The single most effective way to bring donors to our work is to tell stories about the inspiring visionaries we work with. People can relate to that. When I can show a donor exactly how their gift will change a life I almost always succeed in gaining their support.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

If we consider starting a non-profit an actual business, I would suggest that others begin an organization similar to ours–one that actively seeks Good People doing great work and enlist donors to help them get going. There are untold social needs going unmet today, it doesn’t always have to be a large organization that tackles the problem. Follow your passion.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

Running a non-profit organization that helps people in various ways exposes me daily to critical needs that could change a person’s life but for the lack of funds. Recently, a case came to us regarding an elderly woman, living an isolated life in poor health, a sparsely furnished home and minimal income. Her days are spent on a couch watching TV, as getting out of her city apartment is difficult. When I heard that the prospect of having an “easy chair” in which to sit each day brought tears to her eyes I knew that my $100, along with help from others, was money well spent and reminded me once again how modest sums of money can change lives.

What software and web services do you use? What do you love about them?

While I often feel like cursing its very existence I would have to say that Salesforce is probably the most helpful tool I use. It allows me to record my conversations with grantees, donors and others and serves as a reminder of what was said/promised. With days as hectic as mine, this is an important tool.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

Though read years ago, I have never forgotten the messages transmitted by Tracy Kidder in the book, Mountains Beyond Mountains. Kidder focuses on the inspiring work of Dr. Paul Farmer who uses his medical expertise and humanity to help heal people in remote places and reminds me not only that one person can indeed change the world.but that we all have within us the talents and creativity to do the same in other ways.

What people have influenced your thinking and might be of interest to others?

I suspect that because I am at a certain age the writings of Dr. Atul Gwande, particularly Being Mortal, resonate deeply for me. I have learned through the very inspiring work that I do just how to have a good life. I believe that it is just as important for us to have a good “end” as well–to leave this earth in a humane, meaningful and thoughtful way. Dr. Bill Thomas has served as an inspiration to me as well. A Harvard-educated geriatrician, Bill has helped change society’s approach to how people live out their later years. And, the antidote to all of this focus on death and aging is no doubt the NY Times’ satirist, Gail Collins. She is the one I go to when I want to laugh about the craziness that we call politics in this country today; she puts it all in perspective and that is a blessing.

Connect:

http:// www.goodpeoplefund.org
Good People Fund on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/TheGoodPeopleFund
Good People Fund on Twitter: @goodpeoplefund
Naomi Eisenberger on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/naomi-eisenberger/8/721/a33

https://ideamensch.com/naomi-eisenberger/

Providing dignity one bar of soap at a time

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When it comes to helping underprivileged people, food and clothing are the items that usually come to mind. Hygiene products like toothpaste, soap, and shampoo, are almost as important, but often are forgotten in charitable giving.

Jeff Feingold, a Weston resident, set out to address this unmet need with his nonprofit Hope and Comfort, Inc. Feingold, who is Jewish, came up with the idea in 2010, when his daughter Grace turned two, and he and his wife Loren decided to ask for donations to the children’s charity, Cradles to Crayons, in lieu of gifts. Feingold and his family are members of Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland. He said the Jewish value of tzedakah (charity) helped shape who he is and his desire to help out those in need. “We are lucky, our kids are lucky; they have many things others may not have,” said Feingold, who also has a nine­year­old son, Kenny. “We thought, ‘How many more presents could they possibly need?’”

In addition to toys and clothing, guests turned up at Grace’s birthday party with soap, shampoo, baby wipes, and other toiletries. Soon after, Feingold got a call from a social worker, who thanked him for the contribution and told him about the great need for hygiene items in poor communities.

Children and teens with no access to hygiene products are at risk for bullying, are often too embarrassed to go to school and engage in social activities, and end up suffering in isolation. “Positive feelings towards oneself can be difficult to achieve without the ability to look or feel clean. Think about how you feel after a hot shower or after you brush your teeth,” Feingold wrote on his website, hopeandcomfort.org. The organization’s tagline is “Providing dignity one bar of soap at a time.”

Soon after the birthday party, Feingold began donating more toiletries to various organizations in Boston. His first big donation came later that same year, when he gave 250 tubes of toothpaste to Jewish Family & Children’s Service ( JF&CS). The following year, in 2011, Hope and Comfort received its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. The organization has been growing steadily since, hitting a milestone of 70,000 donated items and moving from Feingold’s garage to a storage space in Newton at the end of last year.

For Feingold, his nonprofit is a family endeavor. Grace and Kenny help out with packing and sorting items at the storage facility. “As we’ve gotten bigger and began to help more people, I think they have an appreciation for what we’re trying to do,” Feingold said.

From his synagogue’s rabbi, Neal Gold, Feingold found out about the Good People Fund (GPF), a Jewish philanthropy which funds various organizations across the United States and Israel. In addition to a financial contribution, GPF also provides guidance and networking opportunities. Hope and Comfort received an opening grant of $7,500 from GPF, while relying on individual donations for the rest of its $100,000 annual budget. Feingold receives at least one request a day for toiletries through his online request form from individuals, shelters, schools, and charities. “Items like soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and deodorant are so basic and they’re often overlooked by the general public,” Feingold said. Personal care products are not covered by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), leaving many people who live below the poverty line having to choose between food and soap and toothpaste.

Hope and Comfort distributes toiletries through two programs: Stock the Shelves brings about 1000 of these items each month to seven food pantries in and around Boston, including JF&CS’ Family Table; while Soap for Hope, in partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, focuses exclusively on children’s organizations and schools. The hygiene kits given out by the Soap for Hope program are also used in health and wellness classes in Boston Public Schools to teach the importance of hygiene.

Feingold first began collecting toiletries by buying them himself and receiving donations from volunteers. Now that his nonprofit has gained momentum, most of the toiletries are donated by manufacturers and retailers, and with the help of charity drives in schools.

Feingold, who earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and works full time at Fidelity Investments, runs Hope and Comfort in his spare time. He hired his first full time employee, Julie Williams, a year ago. Williams has an MBA from Babson College and serves as the managing director of the nonprofit. Hope and Comfort is now getting ready to hire two part­time employees to write grants and manage marketing.

In addition to giving out toiletries to various organizations, Feingold conducts surveys to collect data from these organizations to understand why and where the need for toiletries exists and how these items are being used, in order to supply the right ones.

His goal is to give away 1 million products in the next five years. In order to achieve this goal, Feingold wants to expand deliveries to more food pantries and children’s organizations. He also hopes to partner with other organizations, like Dress for Success, which provides clothing for job interviews to low­income women. “The demand is farreaching and endless” he said.

Providing dignity one bar of soap at a time _ www.thejewishadvocate

Interfaith Food Pantry receives $5,000 grant

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The Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges (IFPO), a local organization providing supplemental and emergency food to low-income residents in Orange and East Orange, is the recent recipient of a challenge grant.  The grant was given by the Good People Fund, a township-based organization which offers financial support and mentorship to small, effective initiatives dedicated to repairing the world.

IFPO is a joint effort of four religious institutions: Christ Church and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in the township, and Congregation Beth El and Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange. IFPO operates out of the Church of the Epiphany  in Orange.

“The IFPO is a great example of not only interfaith cooperation but also neighboring communities stepping up to offer help where it is needed,” says Naomi Eisenberger, executive director of the Good People Fund.

IFPO’s board members are active volunteers in the organization, arranging volunteer schedules, stocking the pantry, coordinating deliveries and anything else needed to insure that the operation runs smoothly.

“The IFPO has been helping families for nearly 20 years with food assistance in a dignified and respectful way,” explains Jodi Cooperman, a member of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun and treasurer of IFPO. “We are very happy to be connected with the Good People Fund and the network of grantees they have built.”

Supported by food drives and monetary donations from member congregations, businesses and private individuals as well as other organizations, IFPO exemplifies how an organization can use its creative vision to help meet basic human needs, while operating with very low overhead and generating inspiring results.

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