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Friday August 16, 2002

Parents, federation rally to keep JCS after-school program alive

ALEXANDRA J. WALLBulletin Staff

That's because parents with children enrolled at the after-school program at the Jewish Community Services building in Oakland have managed to find a way to keep it running another year.

A partnership has been established between the Jewish Federation of the Greater East Bay, the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center and the JCS to keep it open, at least through August 2003.

"We killed ourselves," joked Henry Epstein, an Oakland parent whose 6-year-old son is in the program. "We just worked around the clock, and everyone destroyed their livelihood."

In April, the federation board voted not to renew the lease on the facility on Monte Vista Avenue, citing financial constraints as well as a structurally unsound building.

The after-school program, which 79 children attended last year, was not taking in enough money to cover its operating costs.

It is the last program under the auspices of the old Oakland Piedmont Jewish Community Center to be operating out of the old mansion. Senior programs have been moved to nearby synagogues, and the summer camp takes place in a park.

News of the imminent closing caused parents in the Oakland-Piedmont area to spring into action.

According to Epstein, the parent group had the right combination of lawyers, business people, a nonprofit consultant and a marketing expert to get the job done.

They considered four different options, and in the end came up with a sound business plan that the federation could not only approve, but also work with, demonstrating how crucial the JCS service is to the Jewish community.

The parents also pledged $16,000 themselves.

"There was a tremendous level of motivation," said Epstein. "We were parents whose cubs were threatened."

At least 30 percent of the children at JCS are not Jewish. Among those who are, the levels of observance vary.

For many families, the program offers a way to strengthen their ties to the Jewish community and for others it may provide a path of entry. It also is a service that the Jewish community provides to the wider community.

Joel Bashevkin, executive director of the BRJCC, said organizers had put certain guarantees in place to ensure the program against failure.

His involvement is one of those guarantees. "For the first half year, we will keep a close eye so that the program meets our standards for quality and for responsible management," said Bashevkin. But being that JCS is in Oakland, "we'll be relying a great deal on the local community to make sure programs are responsive to the community's needs.

"Our board's real goal and intention here is to have a strong relationship with the Jewish community in Oakland," he said, "and we think by taking a chance on a program that had been in a failure mode and trying to do it in a positive, effective way will be a first step of a good, strong relationship between the communities."

This year will be a test case as for what will happen in the future. In the meantime, it sounds like all parties are happy about the compromise.

"We're very pleased about the outpouring of support and engagement of the parents who benefited from it," said Ami Nahshon, the executive vice president of the federation.

Such parental devotion to the program was what was pushed the federation to consider whether the program could be continued.

"This is a great example of a partnership of consumers and sponsoring organizations to keep a program in place that was clearly in trouble."

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