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The Good People Fund

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One Can Help

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Paying for a swimsuit helps a boy enjoy summer, but also helps a mom rebuild a relationship with her son returning home from foster care. Paying for cell phone minutes helps a foster care child speak to her dad. When attorney Anne Bader-Martin’s organization makes modest payments like these, filling in where resources are lacking, they stop a cycle that usually deteriorates even further — and secure positive outcomes for vulnerable families. One attorney shares, “Twenty-five dollars [for an ID] might seem like a small way to help someone, but for my client it made all the difference. … She is now employed again for the first time in more than six months!”

Needs increased 40% during the pandemic. OCH served 3,000 children and families, providing emergency assistance in the form of supermarket cards, laptops, rent assistance and more. Our funds are used for a new computer operating system.

S.A.H.I.

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“GPF is a family, and the connection is forever.”

When I think of The Good People Fund, I’m reminded of the innocence and wide eyes of an entrepreneur beginning the journey of social change, and I’m filled with a great feeling of gratitude and inspiration. There is a saying that if you really want something, the universe will help you, and GPF was such a force for S.A.H.I.

The day we learned that S.A.H.I. had grown beyond GPF’s criteria for funding was bittersweet. But I realized how far we’d come and that GPF is a family, and the connection is forever. I will always feel very honored and humbled to be part of this exceptional family of good people supporting good people doing good.

I take very seriously my responsibility as a member of this family to always remember the importance of helping people at the beginning of their way. I will always make time to help new entrepreneurs and try to give them some of what GPF gave to me and to S.A.H.I., including encouragement, advice, and faith.

In 2020, when S.A.H.I. was selected to receive the Israeli Presidential Award for Volunteerism, one of the first people I called was Naomi Eisenberger at GPF. Together, we reflected on our journey together. The moment said everything.

— Avraham Hayon, CEO and Co-Founder, S.A.H.I.

Gabriel Project Mumbai

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Jacob Sztokman was in Mumbai, India and witnessed abject need in city slums. The exposure shook him — to the extent that he abandoned his career to establish Gabriel Project Mumbai and uplift lives in challenged urban areas and rural villages.

GPM uses a holistic model of individual and community empowerment, recognizing that education, health care, nutrition, and livelihoods are mutually supporting goals. For example, a GPF-supported project gives women the opportunity to cook nutritious meals for school children, and also encourages them to prepare food for public sale … creating income through social enterprise.

As the pandemic takes its toll in GPM communities, the organization’s Operation CoVER elevates hygiene programs, emergency relief, and vaccination education and outreach. Our funds support GPM’s nutrition program and the purchase of a staff vehicle.

Kaima

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“Still grateful for the enduring partnership.”

I don’t feel like a Good People Fund alum in the sense that I “graduated.” I am still a student, still learning, and still grateful for the enduring partnership.

Kaima’s partnership with GPF affirms something essential that would have helped me in my youth — people who tell you your dreams are crazy will likely remain stuck in the same place, so just keep pursuing your dreams, see the big picture, and never give up!

I am both personally and professionally more attuned now to working to identify potential in others. This is exactly what GPF does. Kaima now frequently meets with younger amutot starting-out to help identify the strengths and weaknesses of their operating model. Sometimes this is done in concert with Naomi at GPF and sometimes on our own. These are some of our lasting GPF moments.

We count ourselves fortunate to not only have benefitted from funding but also from the ongoing friendship and professional guidance which helped us develop from a single youth-run, CSA operating farm into a network of four locations in Israel and one in Tanzania! Our story would simply not be possible without the involvement of GPF.

— Yoni Yefet-Reich, Co-Founder and Director, Amutat Kaima

Pesia’s Kitchen

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Back in the 1920’s, Safta (Grandmother) Pesia was a legend in her hometown of Volozhyn, Poland. Home to a famous yeshiva, the village had more than its fair share of hungry people, and nothing gave Pesia greater pleasure than providing nourishing food to those who needed it.

Many decades later, two grandchildren of Pesia, cousins Gideon Ben Ami and Pnina Raphael, are doing the exact same thing in Tel Aviv and beyond (and are even assisted by some of Pesia’s great-grandchildren). As Gideon often remarks, “It is a human right to have access to healthy food.” To help make that possible, Pesia’s Kitchen feeds nearly a thousand people daily. Since 2012, nearly 2000 tons of perfectly good food (including fresh produce) rescued from local sources has reached Holocaust survivors, refugees, survivors of domestic violence, homeless shelters — anyone who is hungry.

Our funds are used to underwrite administrative expenses.

Uplifting Lives, One At a Time

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Perhaps the most profound lesson we learn each day is that people’s lives can disintegrate precipitously, with little warning and, all too often, with little hope for change. Those with the fewest resources are at greatest risk.

Sometimes we learn about these situations from the very organizations we support; other sources are social workers or doctors with whom we have developed a close relationship and who know that when no other resources are available we can be “a place to turn where all else fails.” Sometimes this means saving a life⎯literally.

In addition to “keeping the lights on,” we also provide emergency funds for food, medical needs, summer camp and rent. Sometimes, by joining forces with other resources, we are able to mitigate even more serious needs, such as purchasing a car for an otherwise self-sufficient victim of domestic violence, or paying tuition for young men and women who have chosen to leave their insular, ultra-religious community, losing both family and friends in the process.

In each case, we know our funds have made a significant difference in helping to restore dignity and hope to people who far too often have so little.