3 minute read
Family Legacy
that directly benefit and support underserved community members, such as those with development disabilities, autism or mental illness. Deeper investments in areas of clinical services and compliance will allow for more data-based decision making and impact measurement, all exponentially enhancing outcomes for people served and the community at large.
The merger will ensure long-term sustainability of vital services for individuals who need them, while positioning the agency for success in the everchanging landscape of public mental health service funding.
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“This merger is vital because it will strengthen our operations, allow us to provide more impactful services and enable our new organization to thrive for many years to come,” said Adelman. “By improving services for the people we serve today and ensuring the sustainability of those services for decades to come, we continue to realize our founders’ goals of meeting the needs of vulnerable people in our community.”
The two agencies offer dozens of services, including career counseling and job placement for job seekers with obstacles to employment, supportive housing for individuals with severe mental illness, financial education, day programs for adults living with developmental disabilities and/or mental illness, counseling for families in crisis, assistance and support coordination for adults living with mental health challenges, enrichment activities and more.
There are no plans for reducing programs; in fact, it is expected that the merger will allow for programs to be upgraded, updated and strengthened.
registration fee includes a ride T-shirt and drink voucher.
Last year, the live ride had to be canceled. There was no official event, as Federation simply encouraged people to take part in their own ride and to donate whatever they wanted to the JCC Krakow if they were able to do so.
Bracha Katz, administrative assistant at the Israel & Overseas Department of Federation, thinks people are excited to get back to riding.
“A lot of them are big bikers and they do this every year, so it’s a good event for riders to get out, get back to normal and be able to have some fun once again, because it’s been a while for a lot of people,” Katz said.
Katz hopes the ride can bring some awareness to the Jewish community in Krakow as well as provide fun for the riders.
“It’s not a sad ride. It’s a lot of joy and hope, that’s why it’s called ‘Ride for the Living,’” Katz said referring to the main Auschwitz to Krakow ride and its local counterpart. “It’s sort of showing people, ‘yes, that happened to us right here and it was really sad — but look at us, we’re a vibrant community and we’re still here, and we’re going to ride our bikes from this place of tragedy to the center of the Jewish community.’
“It’s just a really beautiful sentiment.”
Registration for the ride, which costs $36, can be done at jlive.app/ events/523.
Janet Halper, Rebecca Rosen and Allen Halper
Custom graphic books document grandparents’ stories. grandparents’ stories.
SHARI S. COHEN
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Every family has a cherished story, sometimes many stories, but over time, memories fade and sometimes storytellers are no longer available. Rebecca Rosen’s parents and grandparents were doing genealogy research and trying to figure out how to document their family stories.
Her father, Marc Rosen, Ph.D., a psychologist, had taken notes from conversations with his in-laws, Janet Halper, 85, about her life, and recorded interviews with, Allen Halper, 87. The Halpers live in West Bloomfield.
“Both are great storytellers,” says Rebecca Rosen, 26, a data scientist for a nonprofit organization in New York City, who has been living in Ann Arbor. But written notes and recorded conversations are not a very accessible or permanent record.
Then she thought of Kira Appelman, a Detroit-based artist. “Kira makes beautiful books and is an incredible artist and illustrator. She had been working with storytelling for a Jewish program and had done some art books about notable artists’ and writers’ lives,” Rosen said. So, she commissioned Appelman to create individual graphic books depicting her grandparents’ life stories.
The end result was a digital novel about her grandfather, a retired educator, who also received a physical copy of his digital book. Her grandmother’s story was translated into “more of an art book.” Rosen said.
Since she had not told them of her plans, they were both surprised and delighted to receive their books. “My grandpa cried,” she says.
