Jewish Women's Foundation of Greater Pittsburgh

Holocaust Center — $20,000 for The White Rose: Production of Original Play Telling the Story of Woman-Led Student Resistance During the Holocaust and Associated Programs to Promote Leadership Among Women and Girls. Following the success of last year’s play, “Miracle in Rewanda,” (also funded by JWF), the Holocaust Center, in partnership with Prime Stage Theatre, will be offering an original play about the true story of a woman-led student movement to oppose the Nazis in the darkest days of the Holocaust. There will be a live performance with livestreaming on April 9, 2022. During April, educational programs will be offered through the Global Classroom (a virtual classroom of students from schools in the US and other countries) and to female participants at JADA House and Sarah Heinz House. The programs will demonstrate the potential of women and girls to bring about change even under the most challenging of circumstances.

Sacred Spaces — $30,000 for Aleinu: Safeguarding Our Children. Sacred Spaces partners with Jewish institutions to prevent and respond to sexual abuse and other abuses of power. With a uniquely Jewish lens, Sacred Spaces is the only national organization (but based in Pittsburgh) dedicated to ending institutional abuse through a systemic approach across the lifespan and denominations. In a Community Stakeholder Survey contracted by Sacred Spaces, 51% of parents said they know a youth in the Greater Pittsburgh Jewish Community who has been abused or neglected. Aleinu is an initiative working to raise the standards of child protection in Jewish youth-serving organizations, protecting youth – and especially girls who face significantly higher rates of sexual abuse. A cohort of nine Jewish youth-serving institutions, including three synagogues, are participating in this program in Pittsburgh and training includes the 10 Best Practices for preventing and addressing abuse in our community.

Jewish Community Keystone Grants

B’nai Emunoh Chabad — $3,000 for Mothers of Pittsburgh. Mothers of Pittsburgh will be a virtual space (website) for Jewish women in the Greater Pittsburgh area that will serve as a one-stop destination for all aspects of feminine health and well-being, drawing on regional and world-wide resources. Modeled after the Mothers of Crown Heights website, it will provide the knowledge of resources, medical providers and services available for all areas affecting pregnancy, birth, infertility and other medical needs.

Classrooms Without Borders — $2,000 for Keeping Up With Kindness. This is an ongoing and growing anti-bullying student-led initiative which started in 2019 in the wake of the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue. It is built as a four-part, student-centered series where teen volunteers, bringing a passion for promoting acts of kindness, facilitate an engaging, interactive and collaborative conversation with younger students in a safe, communicative and friendly academic environment to teach and nurture a more just society that values, above all, kindness and respect for each other. Currently 15 classrooms in the K-2 age group participate with approximately 300 students.

Hillel Academy — $10,000 for Girls Together Again Athletics Program. Research from the Women's Sports Foundation indicates that high school girls who play sports are more likely to get better grades, have higher self-esteem, a more positive body image, and experience higher states of psychological well-being than girls and women who do not play sports. In addition, the research indicates that team sports can teach young women important skills of navigating the post high school work environment. Hillel Academy is taking a targeted approach to increase the number and quality of the competitive sports teams offered, and the after-school athletic clubs available, to ensure that every girl in the school can participate in the athletic sport of her choice. A total of 137 girls in grades K-12 will have an opportunity to participate and students will be asked for their opinions on which sports will be added.

JFunds —$10,000 for Financial Coaching Program. JFunds is a formal collaboration among five organizations/programs that offer financial assistance in the Pittsburgh Jewish community and includes Hebrew Free Loan, Jewish Assistance Fund, JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Pantry (SOS Pittsburgh), Jewish Scholarship Service of Greater Pittsburgh, and Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Israel Scholarships. Community members can access funding from these programs separately or simultaneously. The financial coaching program is available free to members of the Jewish community, constituents of the Center for Women and the public. Services offered include coaching on budgeting/development of spending plans, debt management, credit score improvement, student loan payment plan assistance and more. Workshops on financials literacy are also offered.

General Community Keystone Grants

Alina’s Light — $5,000 for Advocacy Support for Alina’s Law - Alina’s Light was established in honor of Alina Sheykhet, a 20-year-old student whose life was tragically taken by her former boyfriend in October, 2017. JWF will be funding efforts to pass “Alina’s Law,” which will allow a judge presiding over PFA (Protection From Abuse) cases to evaluate whether the defendant is found to present a substantial risk of 1) violating the order or 2) committing a crime against the victim punishable by imprisonment. Based on this assessment, the judge could order that the defendant be affixed with a device that will notify local police and the victim if the defendant violates the PFA by entering into a geographic area from which he has been banned by the order.

Allegheny Health Network Women’s Behavioral Health —$10,000 for Women’s Behavioral Health Training for Perinatal Therapists to Support Both Mother and Child –WBH focuses on both perinatal mental health for mother and infant mental health. With this grant, WBH will be cross-training staff on two evidenced-based treatments. Common in Europe and Australia, these modalities mirror best practices from around the world and are not commonly offered in the U.S., as traditional U.S. healthcare views mom/baby as separate patients. This training is considered the “gold standard” of mom/baby therapeutic offerings.

HEARTH —$5,000 (operating grant) – Single Mothers are one of the most disadvantaged groups in the US, making up 8.5 million of 11 million single parent households. HEARTH’s mission is to provide a range of supportive services and housing that empower homeless women with children, who are survivors of domestic violence or other trauma, to become independent, economically self-sufficient, and adequately housed. In addition to housing, HEARTH provides supportive services such as case management, educational and employment opportunities with community partners as well as counseling services through Crisis Center North.

Open Field — $10,000 for Soccer + Life Skills Program – Open Field’s mission is to improve the lives and futures of youth through sport. Through their soccer for social impact programming, they promote girls’ empowerment, holistic education, leadership and life skills, and health and well-being on and off the field. Participants in the Soccer + Life Skills program include refugee girls living in the Crafton Heights and Northview Heights neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. In 2020 JWF provided seed funding for this program, and the 2021 grant will increase the number of participants and services provided. All activities are led by female coach mentors.

Planned Parenthood — $10,000 (operating grant) – Planned Parenthood of Western PA’s mission is to provide comprehensive and complementary health care, disseminate information about human sexuality and the need for family planning and responsible parenthood and advocate for public policies which guarantees these rights. Services include providing high quality complete gynecological care, STI testing and treatment services, well-person exams and cancer screenings.

The Neighborhood Academy — $10,000 for TNA’s Female Counseling Program – TNA is a faith-based, college prep independent school whose mission is to break the cycle of generational poverty by empowering youth and preparing them for college and citizenship. This program aims to provide the resources, skills and information pertinent to TNA’s black female students who experience mental health challenges as a result of systematic bias related to race and gender, pandemic-related stressors and difficult experiences due to broken homes and families.

When She Thrives — $6,500 (operating grant) – When She Thrives is dedicated to empowering single mothers to move their families from poverty to prosperity through education, advocacy, personal and professional development. Serving primarily Black women, they provide experiential learning through the “Scenes from a Single Mom Project,” which supports participants through a bootcamp to help the mothers work through the challenges and fears they face. The SOAR (Successfully Overcoming Adversity with Resilience) program takes a multi-generational approach to helping single mothers and their children understand the intersection of social justice and self-care. They also provide rapid response grants to prevent crises, homelessness, hunger and unemployment.

Women’s Center & Shelter — $7,500 (operating grant) – WC&S meets the individual and evolving needs of those affected by domestic violence. The need for WC&S services has significantly increased during the pandemic, which has made it more difficult for survivors to contact programs for help. W&CS has adapted to this by enabling its hotline to provide text messaging and online chat support (partially funded by JWF). Other W&CS services include its emergency shelter, children’s advocacy program, legal advocacy program and the civil law project, which provides free legal representation in court matters.

Women’s Law Project — $6,000 (operating grant) – WLP seeks to eliminate sex discrimination using the power of the law. Issue areas include sexual harassment and assault, denial of access to reproductive health care, discrimination against LGBT people, pregnancy discrimination in educational and employment settings, unequal pay, and other systemic gender inequities in healthcare.

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