In its core granting cycle, the Jewish Community Foundation’s Community Legacy Fund has awarded $254,313 to 17 local Jewish community organizations. These grants are intended to help enhance and maintain the quality of Jewish life in the Greater Kansas City area.
Core grants support the general operating expenses (core expenses) central to the accomplishment of an organization’s mission. The Community Legacy Fund also makes core grants for unique services not otherwise available within the Jewish community that are essential to Jewish life.
Community Legacy Fund grants were awarded for the following organizations/programs:
- Community Kollel of Kansas City: healthcare benefits
- Gan Chabad Torah Learning Center: KC Kosher Meals on Wheels audit
- Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy: scholarships
- Jewish Community Campus: common space utilities
- Jewish Community Campus: technology upgrade
- The Jewish Community Center: internet security testing
- JCRB/AJC: general support and Development Director
- Jewish Family Services: chaplaincy program
- Jewish Family Services: food pantry rent
- Jewish Family Services: Priya
- Jewish Vocational Service: workforce development
- KU Hillel: accounting support
- Midwest Center for Holocaust Education: rent
- Moishe House: KC house
- Orthodox Union: Jewish Student Union Kansas City
- Overland Park Eruv: maintenance and repair
- Rabbinical Association: administrative support
- University of Missouri Hillel: staff salaries
- Vaad HaKashruth of Kansas City: operational costs
- Village Shalom: Indigent Care Program
“These grants will both help sustain our vibrant community and provide aid to our community’s vulnerable,” says Linda Lyon, chair of the Foundation’s grants committee. “The grants committee appreciates how important core grants are to our local Jewish organizations.”
The Community Legacy Fund consists of permanent endowments from which grants are awarded to agencies whose applications are reviewed and evaluated by the Foundation’s grants committee and Board of Trustees. In addition to its core granting cycle, the fund has an innovation/emergency cycle that supports high-quality, new programs that provide an innovative approach or solution to an existing or emerging community need, or respond to financial or humanitarian emergencies.
In an effort to have the greatest impact upon the Jewish community, the Community Legacy Fund maintains the following objectives: to provide financial support for safety net services; to nurture a strong Jewish community by providing underwriting for Jewish education, community relations, and cultural arts; to provide financial support for seed programs which meet an identified community need; to purchase equipment which enhances an organization’s general operations or programs; to provide core support for Jewish community agencies; and, to provide support for programs which are essential to Jewish life in Kansas City.
