PJ Library Kansas City received international recognition for its programming and success at the annual PJ Library International Conference earlier this month.
Bridey Stangler, the PJ Library Kansas City coordinator, and Jay Lewis, president and CEO of Jewish Federation, were invited to speak on panels at the PJ Library International Conference in Springfield, Massachusetts, about the program’s reach and effectiveness.
PJ Library works to build Jewish identity, engagement and community by providing free Jewish books and events for area children ages 0 to 8 (the PJ Our Way program provides books for children ages 9-12). PJ Library and PJ Our Way are programs of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, and the local branch is supported with funding and resources from Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City.
Lewis, whose children were among the first group in Kansas City to receive PJ Library books, was invited to speak on a panel of executives about the role PJ Library plays as an organization’s communal engagement strategy. He referred to the 2021 Greater Kansas City Jewish Community Study’s findings that some people found it difficult to be involved.
“PJ Library [Kansas City] is on the front lines of breaking down some of those barriers to engagement that people saw,” Lewis said.
One of the ways the barriers are lowered is through PJ in the Neighborhood, which brings PJ Library events to Jewish community members who live outside of Leawood and Overland Park, where the majority of the local Jewish population is centered.
“We’re really on the cutting edge of the trend that a lot of our programming is becoming far less centralized,” Stangler said.
Stangler spoke on a panel on how PJ Library can help develop relationships with families. She has spearheaded recent efforts to increase engagement in local PJ Library programming, with recent examples including the annual Hanukkah Glow Party and the first private event hosted by the Rabbit hOle museum (in partnership with Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy).
One of PJ Library Kansas City’s recent large-scale programs was bringing Israeli artist Hanoch Piven for an artist-in-residence weekend. Stangler organized the weekend, which included not only children’s events (with the participation of the community’s Jewish religious schools, Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy and multiple synagogues) but also events for college students, adults and seniors.
“Nobody had done weekend-long programs like that,” Stangler said. “...We made it possible for the entire community, regardless of age and background, to engage with this Jewish artist. Instead of just making a PJ Library program, we were able to provide something to the entire community because we (PJ Library) have the particular resources and skills to make that happen.”
Additionally, PJ Library Kansas City is one of the first branches to have funded programming aimed at grandparents. It received one of 29 $3,500 grants to establish the PJ Grandparent Program last summer.
Both Stangler and Lewis shared that at the conference, PJ Library Kansas City’s reputation seemed to precede it.
“People were just surprised because the volume and the quality of the programming that we deliver suggest we have a lot more people [than we do],” Stangler said. “We were invited to participate in conversations with much larger communities.”
“Anytime that people found out I was from Kansas City, their faces lit up,” Lewis said. “Kansas City and Bridey are well-known entities in the PJ Library world.”
Federation launched the program in March of 2008; currently, more than 1,000 children across the Kansas City Jewish community receive monthly books and other content intended to teach about Jewish traditions and values.
In addition to Federation and the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, PJ Library Kansas City is supported by the Lowenstein Family Supporting Foundation; The Norman & Elaine Polsky Family Charitable Foundation; and Menorah Legacy Foundation.
More information about PJ Library Kansas City is available at jewishkansascity.org/pjlibrary, on Facebook and Instagram, or by contacting Stangler at .
Harold Grinspoon, founder of PJ Library (left), with Federation CEO Jay Lewis.