With summer winding down, students are moving into “back-to-school” mode. But at UJA-Federation, we’ve been preparing for school all summer.
Last week, I participated in two heartwarming UJA programs. The first, Supplies for Success, brought together more than 100 volunteers of all ages at our Manhattan office to assemble 1,400 brand new backpacks filled with school supplies for children who wouldn’t otherwise have them. Similar UJA programs have taken place at multiple venues around New York and Long Island, with a total of 11,000 backpacks being assembled this summer.
It’s hard to overstate a child’s excitement at receiving a new backpack filled with supplies, and its impact on his or her attitude about school. And I’m proud to say that, since initiating this program 15 years ago, UJA will have provided more than 57,000 new backpacks and school supplies to a generation of children.
Later in the week, I took part in UJA’s annual Rose Biller Scholarship presentation and career fair. A little history: Rose Biller was a single mother living in New York City in the early 1900s who couldn’t support her large family, so Federation stepped in to sustain them. Her son, Osias, never forgot that help. After a successful career, he bequeathed various assets to UJA-Federation, naming an endowment fund in honor of his mother.
Today, UJA’s Rose Biller Endowment Fund is the largest Jewish scholarship program in the country. One aspect of the program, administered by the Hebrew Free Loan Society (a UJA beneficiary), has enriched the lives of thousands of Jewish students seeking to go to college, graduate, or professional schools. At the event last week, in a jam-packed room filled with hundreds of students representing the full diversity of Jewish New York, UJA awarded more than $1.2 million in scholarships to 463 young adults.
We heard from Ilya Bratman, executive director of Baruch College Hillel. Ilya, who came from Moscow with his parents in the early 1990s, shared that he’d received a Rose Biller scholarship, providing the means to go to college. After serving in the United States Armed Forces, Ilya chose to devote his career to the Jewish community that has given him so much.
The Rose Biller Fund is just one of the scholarship programs on UJA’s funding docket. We also provide extensive resources for scholarships to: Jewish day schools; day and residential camps; Israel trips; teen summer experiences; and Jewish communal professionals. In total, we distribute more than $5 million annually to help Jews of all backgrounds access transformative Jewish experiences and educational opportunities.
The impact of all these investments reaches far and wide — from the student to the family, from one family to a community. Today, one young person is able to go to college because of our support. In 10 or 20 years from now, he or she may be the one to lead a school . . . a synagogue . . . a non-profit . . . a federation . . . a community forward. Like Ilya Bratman. Or Osias Biller.
In finance, you might call this a long-term investment. In community terms, it’s committing to our shared future.
Shabbat shalom