Andrea Good

In Israel, Shana Aaronson is the CEO of Magen for Jewish Communities, a GPF grantee organization addressing sexual abuse and exploitation in the Orthodox Jewish community. Under her leadership, the organization is making huge impact by helping and supporting survivors, raising awareness and educating  in the community and beyond,  and advocating for survivors in investigatory and legal channels.

The art of deriving and telling life stories can be the great connector — empowering individuals on the edges of society, bridging divides in communities, and advancing social justice. Cara Solomon is a former journalist establishing and practicing this approach as Founder and Executive Director of Everyday Boston, a GPF grantee. She describes the impact she seeks and is making, here in conversation with GPF Executive Director Naomi Eisenberger.

“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 Sanderovitch walked into Kaima Be’erotayim in Israel’s Hefer Valley, and her life and prospects took a dramatic turn upwards.

“I think this place saved me,” says Avigail, now 17. “I can’t even imagine where or what I would have been if I didn’t come here three years ago.”

Kaima Beerotayim, a GPF grantee, is a bucolic educational farm that uses the healing power of nature, utilizes employment as a learning tool, and leverages the notion of community — all to shift the downward trajectory of youth unable to relate to normative school settings.

“There is not one way to learn or one place to learn in,” says CEO Rani Erez, who co-founded Kaima Beerotayim with her mother and sister on family land in 2015. “There are so many possibilities and so many needs.”

For Avigail — who by arrangement attends school for a minimal number of days per week, and spends other days at Kaima Beerotayim, time there can look any which way … from practicing farming techniques and tending to vegetation out in the field … to helping to manage the farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

But beyond these highly useful skills that seed productive futures for Kaima Beerotayim youth, there is the intentional communal structure that creates hope and support into the future.

“This is our home, and a family structure is one of our focal points,” Roni says, describing, just as an example, how the Kaima Beerotayim community gathers for breakfast each morning to discuss the day ahead and what’s on everyone’s minds. “That personal connection brings them back morning after morning.”

For Avigail, the familial relationships are central, she says, to being seen and heard and giving her a grounding for life.

“This is more than a place to go, or a place to work. It is literally family to me. If I have issues with life, I have someone to talk to. I see Roni as my second mother. She is there all the time for me. All the relationships I have here, I won’t find anywhere else, and I couldn’t be without them.”

“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, books, and “Smile Bags” with personal care items — or just talking to and connecting with kids and hearing what they have to say.

More broadly though, Benjamin personifies a key thrust of CCC’s drive to enhance the lives of these children through creative and robust programming, and at the same time empowering teens to become engaged community volunteers and leaders — now and for the future.

“My participation is expanding and shaping my world view, and is a factor in the way I act and define myself,” says Benjamin, a high school senior who is a member of the Leadership Development Program of CCC, a GPF grantee.

The program engages Jewish teens in grades 8 to 12 to incubate a young generation for lifetime roles as leaders in the social impact sector and beyond. A formal curriculum offers a deep dive into such issues as leadership within a Jewish context and social justice, to more practical skills including community partnership building, public speaking and fundraising.

The Leadership Development Program began with 20 participants in 2010, and reaches 273 teens this year. Many stay in the program for four years, making it one of their longest and most immersive high school commitments, and an alumni program keeps many involved for years to come.

“They all come from different places and orientations and sets of experiences, and I often see that ‘light bulb’ moment when potential is unlocked, skills are practiced, relationships are solidified, and impact is made,” says Amy Zeide, CCC’s Founder and Co-Executive Director.

“There are elements of fun and excitement that our participants bring, along with an intense community mindfulness. They recognize they are building leadership skills and relationships that will greatly inform their paths forward.”

Benjamin became familiar with CCC when he raised money and participated in activities for the organization as part of his Bar Mitzvah project. He was so drawn, he says, to CCC’s grassroots impact, the opportunity to look at community challenges in the face, and the camaraderie among CCC’s teen leaders, he applied to and joined the Leadership Development Program about a year later.

“I don’t know how else I would be exposed so intimately to the challenges and situations of people in our community who are struggling,” Benjamin says. “Now, there’s no way I can’t help out and try to change things for them and others.”

“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 few medical options in Ukraine, she came to Israel to see the specialists she needed. She decided to stay.

Sarah was in her late-80s when she passed away in her small and cramped ground-floor apartment in Haifa in August, just weeks after GPF spoke with her.

With no children, and at an age when friends are lost and new ones hard to find, she was in danger of losing connection to the world beyond her front door.

“I’m alone and there is no one. So it’s nice when someone thinks about me,” said Sarah, a Holocaust survivor.

That “someone” was Heart to Plate, an organization founded in 2020 by Matan Asulin and Ronnie Lee. The two young Israelis believe that the emotional and physical well-being of elderly, isolated people like Sarah can be elevated by a community of care dedicated to bringing them home-cooked meals and some companionship along the way.

“It is more than food,” says Ronnie. “They know they are not alone in the world anymore. That is the most important thing.”

Heart to Plate, a GPF grantee, creates a cadre of volunteers dedicated to isolated, elderly persons. Each Friday night and on holidays, volunteers bring a home-cooked Shabbat meal and create a much anticipated experience of connection.

“We are not just creating community for our elderly and isolated neighbors, we are bringing them back into the community,” says Matan. “We see the relationships between them and our volunteers growing stronger over time.”

Connections are typically made through social welfare agencies in cities and municipalities where the organization is active. Volunteers — there are about 400 now — come from word of mouth, social media outreach, and emerging partnerships with companies, schools and youth movements.

Heart to Plate began as a small pilot initiative bringing Rosh Hashanah meals and visits to five elderly people in 2020. In the short time since then, it has grown to serving more than 200 beneficiaries in five cities.

When he sent word of Sarah’s passing to GPF, Matan highlighted the gift of Heart to Plate.

“It’s comforting that Sarah was surrounded by people who cared for and visited her in her last year.”

“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 sustained need for her new skill, so Shramilla returned to working in rice paddies and doing odd chores with little pay and no prospects.

That is, until Gabriel Project Mumbai (GPM) — a Good People Fund grantee — established its Tribal Threads program in Mokhada five years ago. In this remote, underserved and challenged village, about a dozen women work in a sewing collective making products like face masks for UNICEF, cloth products for area hotels and other contracted items.

Many of the women use machines bought by The Good People Fund for Tribal Threads. And beyond that space, more women participate and work from home in nearby villages.

“A goal is to give women in the most vulnerable communities a livelihood,” says Jacob Sztokman, GPM’s Founding Director. “It means they have options, and the ability to make better decisions for their own lives and for their families.”

Tribal Threads is just one example of GPM’s multiple creative programs that collectively reflect its holistic mission to break the cycle of poverty and lost opportunity within urban slum communities in Mumbai and in rural villages in remote areas beyond the city.

The GPM approach elevates multiple intertwined and mutually supportive pillars supporting community development: nutrition, health, education, and livelihoods. “You don’t just give great education and then everything is good. You need a more robust idea of community development,” Jacob says.

Besides the Tribal Threads program, The Good People Fund has supported other GPM programs advancing women’s livelihoods and the positive rippling effects.

One is Masala Mamas, a kitchen collective in which women cook hot meals delivered to children in school, and promote positive nutritional outcomes. Another is Niyama (Hindi for “healthy living”), a year-old social enterprise growing livelihoods through preparation and marketing of non-medicinal tribal remedies, such as balms and oils.

For Shramilla, now 23, the sewing collective was the catalyst it was designed to be. With some additional GPM training, she learned new sewing skills — like advanced stitching and embroidery — and was able to get a second job making traditional kurta shirts. Later, she saved enough money to buy her own sewing machine, and began her own business employing two other women.

“For the first time, I have economic independence,” Shramilla said proudly and with gratitude.