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The Good People Fund

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TribeTalk

At one university, a Jewish student resigned from student government after being harassed for her pro-Israel views. At another, neo-Nazi posters were removed. At a third, anti-Israel rallies took place on the quad. The list goes on, as antisemitic and anti-Zionist incidents rise on college campuses.

In Massachusetts, visionaries Michelle Black, Robin Friedman, and Jude Sydney recognized that their own children were unprepared to navigate shifting, challenging and sometimes threatening environments. In 2020, the three founded TribeTalk as a resource-rich hub giving college-bound high school students connections and information to help them evaluate Jewish life on campuses … and equip them with the knowledge and confidence to wear their Jewish identities proudly once there — and beyond.

Our funds help cover administrative expenses.

Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery’s volunteers provide transportation for people from West Bank and Gaza checkpoints to Israeli hospitals for critical care. Each ride fosters friendship between people for whom peaceful coexistence has been consistently unattainable — the positive outcome founder Yuval Roth was hoping for after losing his brother in a terrorist attack.

Despite Covid restrictions, volunteers made 9,650 trips for 15,000 patients. 2020 also saw the opening of RtoR’s new transportation logistics center and a partnership with Pesia’s Kitchen (another GPF grantee), to provide infant formula and non-perishables to patients who live where food is scarce. Our funds are used to purchase medical supplies and fuel.

SPIRIT Club Foundation

There’s a fitness club in Maryland that’s not your usual corner gym. At SPIRIT Club, individuals with physical and developmental challenges are lifting weights, doing aerobics, and working with personal trainers in a space that embraces diversity and inclusion.

SPIRIT (Social-Physical-Interactive-Respectful-Integrated-Teamwork) Club Founder Jared Ciner merged his fitness background and experience working with people with special needs to open SPIRIT Club in 2013. He later established SPIRIT Club Foundation to ensure that physical health and socialization is accessible to members of a too-often marginalized population, and to advocate for their visibility and accommodation.

“We have to understand that every person is an equal human being who deserves the same respect and opportunity as anyone else,” Jared says.

Our grant funds scholarships for a swimming program, and for technology allowing virtual participation in fitness classes during the pandemic and beyond.

Survivor Mitzvah Project

In 2001, Zane Buzby set out to discover her roots in Eastern Europe. What she found were some of the last survivors of the Holocaust, all but forgotten, living in extreme poverty. So she founded The Survivor Mitzvah Project which now helps 2,500 individuals in nine countries, providing funds for food, heat and shelter. “The money is lifesaving,” Zane says, “but the connections are equally lifesaving.” SMP is writing a more hopeful final chapter to the Holocaust, she adds — “one of kindness and compassion, what they finally deserve at the end of their lives.” SMP also has created an invaluable Holocaust Educational Archive, including hundreds of hours of video of survivors and rescuersand over 20,000 pages of handwritten testimonies from survivors in Eastern Europe and The Baltics.

Homecare became nearly impossible during the pandemic. SMP hired caregivers and provided PPE so that food and medical help could still be delivered to the most vulnerable. Our funds underwrite survivors’ needs.