News & Impact

This summer 58 high school students from San Francisco, the Peninsula and Marin County participated in JFCS’ YouthFirst six-week internship program. They were placed in all kinds of offices—from a private dentist practice to an engineering firm—as well as at JFCS itself. The program recently concluded with all teens agreeing that it was a fantastic experience. Courting a Career Three years ago as a rising sophomore, Steve Dvorkin was a summer intern at JFCS where he performed administrative and organizational office tasks. The experience was so positive that the 18-year-old returned again this summer. This time he was assigned to… Read More

I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal about if college students should or should not work while in school. I began researching about working in college as I was eager to find out people’s opinion on the subject. I first spoke extensively with Michelle Lamphere, the Director of the Financial Aid Center, at Jewish Family and Children Services. She believes having an academic focus in college is great, but holding a job too is an excellent way to gain real life work experience before embarking on a professional career. She thinks working during college will enhances… Read More

High school students preparing for college are faced with the challenge of figuring out what their total educational costs will be for their freshman year. Each institution states their cost of attendance differently. Colleges can show their costs by number of units, by semester or by year. This is made more difficult to understand when colleges don’t include everything on the same page, such as extra fees, health insurance, loan costs, and additional program expenses. Students may get lost in the excitement of getting accepted to their chosen school, and don’t consider whether their dream school will be an affordable… Read More

By all accounts Micah had a great freshman year—good grades, a nice mix of extracurricular activities and some new friends who shared his passions for music, soccer and anime comics. But by October of his sophomore year, Micah, now 16, had lost interest in school, sports, clubs and friends. He spent a lot of time alone in his room listening to heavy metal music; only emerging for meals where he sat sullenly, responding to his parents’ questions with barely a grunt. “We were out of our minds with concern,” said his mother, Joanne, who contacted Parents Place for help after… Read More

The facts are clear: Attending a Jewish summer camp as a child leads to a stronger identification with the Jewish community as an adult. Without the generous camp scholarships provided by JFCS, Micah and Rachel, 10-year-old twins on the Peninsula, would have missed out on this vital experience. The siblings lost their Israeli-born father to multiple sclerosis five years ago. Since then, it has been the hope of their mother, Pam, who is struggling financially, to connect her children to their father’s heritage through the Jewish summer camp experience. “But I could never afford it,” says Pam. “JFCS has helped… Read More

Ayala Feder-Haugabook, an incoming senior at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, has had a busy summer. While gearing up for an August trip to Israel, where her brother is in the army, she also participated in a first-in-a-lifetime experience: a paying summer internship. Ayala was one of approximately 60 teens throughout San Francisco, Marin County, and the Peninsula who were selected to be part of JFCS’ Summer Internship Program, which provides valuable work experience—both at JFCS and at various organizations and businesses in the Bay Area. In addition to working in various offices and acquiring on-the-job… Read More