Leadership Arm of Jewish Teen Philanthropy Program Awards Grant to Southern AZ Red Cross
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
For Immediate Release
Leadership Arm of Jewish Teen Philanthropy Program Awards First Grant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Contact: Bryan Davis, B’nai Tzedek Tucson Coordinator, Coalition for Jewish Education of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, 577-9393, bdavis@jfsa.org
On Sunday, May 3, 2009, B’nai Tzedek Tucson’s Teen Advisory Council (TAC), a small leadership group of 10th through 12th grade B’nai Tzedek teens, selected the American Red Cross Southern Arizona Chapter’s Disaster Relief Services for Children and Families program as the beneficiary of their $1200 grant. The 2008-2009 school year provided TAC teens their first opportunity to participate in a group granting process. The grant will be presented by TAC teens to Richard White, CEO of the American Red Cross Southern Arizona Chapter, at the Annual Meeting of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 7:00pm at the Jewish Community Center.
TAC’s first group granting process partnered B’nai Tzedek Tucson with the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Youth In Philanthropy Initiative (AFP/YIP). Informed by the fall 2008 economic downturn, TAC teens built consensus to select poverty as their focus issue and identified a fundraising goal of $500 which they surpassed by planning and holding a Yard/Bake Sale on November 30, 2008 and making phone calls to ask family, friends, and community members for financial support. AFP/YIP matched the funds raised, enabling the TAC teens to create a Request for Proposals for $1200. Thirteen grant proposals were submitted which the teens reviewed and narrowed down to their top three. After much deliberation, the TAC teens selected the American Red Cross as the beneficiary of their grant. The decision was strongly influenced by the explanation given during a presentation from American Red Cross representatives that the TAC grant of $1200 would almost exactly cover the $1148 cost to keep one local family from homelessness after suffering a disaster like a flood or fire. Inspired by the story that contrasts giving a person a fish versus teaching him/her how to fish, the teens chose a grant that would greatly impact one family by getting them back on their feet and hopefully inspire that family to live generously in the future.
B’nai Tzedek Tucson is a teen philanthropy program that partners the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Coalition for Jewish Education with the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and enables Jewish teens (8th-12th grade) to develop a lifelong practice of philanthropy by establishing their own charitable funds from which they make an annual distribution to the non-profit of their individual choice. In less than three short years, over ninety teens from a diverse group of public and private middle and high schools have joined B’nai Tzedek Tucson.
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