News & Impact

JFCS’ Gary Shupin Independent Living Community provides connection, community, support, and independence for adults with developmental disabilities. As a Shupin Club member since 2018, Heather loves trying new activities and one day hopes to have a job and help others. Read on to learn more about Heather and her favorite things about the Shupin Social Club. Tell us about yourself! My name is Heather Ostrau. I am from Palo Alto originally and lived in Napa and Concord at other independent living programs until I found Shupin House. When did you join Shupin Club? What were things like before you joined?… Read More

When Aaron turned 25, his frustration at not being able to move out of his mother’s apartment and be more independent grew. His mother, Judy, wondered how Aaron would be able to take this step. With his developmental and physical challenges, Aaron struggled to manage everyday tasks—like preparing a healthy meal and keeping track of his medications and medical appointments. As a single parent, Judy feared what would happen to Aaron if something happened to her. Mother and son felt stuck—and all on their own. Then a friend suggested Judy call JFCS. For more than 20 years, individuals of all… Read More

Caryn Siegel, a spiritual care volunteer for JFCS’ Jewish Chaplaincy Services serving Stanford Medicine, has been dedicating her time to supporting hospital patients for fifteen years. Caryn offers her patients a compassionate presence and a listening ear. She also brings insight from a very personal experience. In 1987, Caryn’s son, Ilan, was born at Stanford Hospital severely disabled. Ilan was in and out of Stanford’s Intensive Care Unit for the next seventeen years of his life. Caryn vividly remembers sitting in the hospital with her husband, Mark, over the years—the two of them feeling very alone. When Ilan passed… Read More

Mark Bely says that what he knows about JFCS is that it is a go to organization. When you need help, have questions, or want to give back to the community, you go to JFCS. Mark was nine years old when his family left Russia for a new life in San Francisco. His parents, Boris and Larisa, moved the family to be closer to Boris’ father, who had made the same journey a year before. With hard work and the help of JFCS’ Emigre Services, the three generations of the Bely family soon adjusted to life in America—Boris became… Read More

Just last year, Sarah escaped from a decade-long, abusive relationship with the father of her two young children. She was finally making ends meet on her own when she lost her retail job due to the pandemic. Sarah called JFCS in tears, worried that her sons—who had already experienced so much pain and trauma—now would not even have enough to eat. Sarah is one of thousands of people struggling to afford the cost of food and basic essentials who have called JFCS for help since the start of the pandemic. In fact, the need for food in our community is… Read More

Anna P, Recipient of JFCS Educational Loans and Grants, Found Herself on the Front Lines of the COVID-19 Outbreak When Anna P received the JFCS educational loans and grants that allowed her to attend the University of Massachusetts, she never would have believed that she would enter the nursing field just as COVID-19 had begun its spread, in the epicenter of the pandemic, in a public hospital in New York City. Anna, whose family emigrated to the Bay Area from Ukraine when she was a child, moved to New York after college. After some career exploration, she discovered her true… Read More