Passion for Agency Common Theme in Celebration of Service Speakers
We couldn’t have ordered better weather for our 3rd Annual Celebration of Service on June 2. The beautiful day seemed to set the tone for the entire event.
Ted Flaum, our former CEO, held back his emotions as he thanked everyone for their support during his five year tenure at JFS. Ted has taken the helm at St. Paul Jewish Federation.
The Service Award winners, retiring JFS staff members Dora Lender, Irina Margolin and Chris Rosenthal, were honored in a video that we invite you to watch here. Each spoke briefly, offering genuine and sincere thanks and reminiscences about their time at JFS. Irina’s granddaughter came up on stage to give her grandma flowers.
Keynote speaker and mental health advocate Senator Al Franken immediately engaged the audience with his cerebral wit. He used an ingenious combination of humor and poignancy to explain his passionate advocacy for mental health care and outlined the work he did while a senator to improve resources and services in schools and prisons.
JFS was delighted to have the clients featured in this year’s agency video in attendance: Dr. Kathryn Guthrie, Caregiver Coaching client, along with her husband John; Matthew Levine, Financial Assistance Services client, and his guest Diane; and Pam Orren, member of our Caregiver Support Group, along with her husband Jeff. Katie, Matt and Pam shared their stories on the video and explained how JFS services helped them. Click here and scroll to the bottom of our website home page to view the video.
We’ve added dozens of photos to our 2019 Celebration of Service photo album on our Facebook page here. Special thanks to our gold sponsor Sofya Barth Photography for donating her time and talent to our fundraiser.