“I felt unanchored and lost. It became too much to carry my own laundry,” said Frances [a pseudonym to protect privacy], remembering.
It was an awful time in her life: first, her husband had passed after a long illness, with Frances nursing him for the final two years. Then she had left her Indianapolis home and moved to Cincinnati to live with her son, since he wanted to help her—however within a month of her arrival, her son was diagnosed with terminal cancer....
Jewish Family Service (JFS) is on a roll. After recently becoming the only program in Ohio to win a grant from the national Alzheimer’s Foundation for its new Adult Day Services, JFS just won another honor. On March 20, its K’vod Connect program won the Tristate Association for Professionals in Aging’s Outstanding Project in the Field of Aging Award.
As Fay May was thinking ahead to her upcoming 92nd birthday, she eagerly shared how she was planning for a special ‘Birthday Shabbat’ at Rockdale Temple. “I’ll have to take my walker, of course,” Fay said. “And I have an eye problem, so I can't strike a match. Rabbi Meredith Kahan will have to light the candles on the bimah—so I don't burn the temple down,” she added with a mischievous grin. “And then, I will say the barucha (blessing), and they’ll bring the wine and the challah to my seat."
Jewish Family Service (JFS) of Cincinnati has recently convened the Create Your Jewish Legacy (CYJL) committee to encourage community members to talk with their families about a legacy commitment to JFS. CYJL is a nationwide program initiated in 2014 by the Grinspoon Foundation with the goal of building endowments that will sustain Jewish organizations locally, and secure a reliable financial future for Jewish communities across the country.
Cincinnati — Jewish Family Service of the Cincinnati Area (JFS) has moved its headquarters from the Mayerson Jewish Community Center (JCC), located on Ridge Road in Amberley Village, to Kenwood Road in Blue Ash. JFS provides a variety of high-quality professional services, including counseling for youth, teens, and young adults; help for older adults navigating the complexities of aging—through AgeWell Cincinnati; and non-medical, in-home care—with StarPoint Home Care.
Jewish Family Service is ramping up a new program to help isolated older adult community members stay connected to the community virtually. Nicholas Rackers is the new Virtual Programs Engagement Specialist at JFS. He is overseeing a program that provides technology and training to older adult community members so they can better engage with JFS’s online programming and connect with their families and friends.
“I think without this program, a lot of people would be a lot lonelier,” said Stanley Slomovits over a recent Zoom call. Slomovits was talking about the Uniper Cares program, which connects seniors through live virtual programming.
Seniors from around the country can connect through their TVs and mobile devices to a number of virtual peer-led groups. “I run a current events group where we talk about what’s going on in the news, and I lead an art appreciation group,” he explained.