- Legacy Giving Stories
Thanks to the Kalinowski Family Fund, women and children whose lives have been touched by domestic violence receive direct, practical, and compassionate assistance from JFCS.
In October 1998, then-JFCS Board member Linda Kalinowski, an attorney, and her husband, Tom, a chemical engineer, established their named continuity fund to assist victims of domestic violence. As an active volunteer with JFCS’ Dream House, a transitional housing and support-services program for women and their children who have escaped abusive situations, Linda became highly sensitized to this issue after opening the newspaper one morning and reading that her one-time college roommate’s sister had been killed by her husband in a fit of rage.
This shocking news deepened Linda’s resolve to educate the Jewish community about the issue of domestic violence and the fact that it affects hundreds of thousands of women throughout the world, without regard to their religious, ethnic, or economic status. Subsequently, as the chair of JFCS’ Public Issues Committee, and through the family’s fund, Linda, along with Tom and their daughters, has continued to work on behalf of those who face violence directed at them by members of their own family.
Shared from the Heart
“Each moment, you are called upon to choose what you shall bring into the world. The choice is yours. So, too, the consequences.”
—Wisdom of the Jewish Sages, 11:17, translated by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
If you would like to start a Named Endowment Fund at JFCS, please contact [email protected] or 415-449-3858.