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The Good People Fund

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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.

Survivor Mitzvah Project

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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.