News & Impact

US News and World Report by Susan Johnston Each year, U.S. citizens adopt over 100,000 children, according to the Child Welfare Information Gateway. Costs can range from very little for adopting a child from foster care to $40,000 or more for a private domestic adoption, says Nicole Witt, executive director of The Adoption Consultancy in Florida. For families having difficulty conceiving, the cost of infertility treatments can also run into the tens of thousands of dollars or more, but adoption offers a key benefit that medicine doesn’t. “[Adoption is] always a roller coaster of ups and downs, but at the… Read More

NBC Bay Area By: Lisa Fernandez, reporter Helen Farkas is one of a dwindling group of Holocaust survivors still alive to relay the horrors she experienced. At age 94, the Romanian-born woman is still an active speaker, telling children and civic groups how she scrambled for scraps of bread and escaped the infamous Auschwitz death camp march with her sister in 1945, during a guard shift in the middle of the night. Read the entire story and hear Helen’s interview from NBC Bay Area… Read More

Even before Karen and Scott adopted their son, Gregory, more than four years ago with the help of JFCS’ dedicated adoption agency, Adoption Connection, the couple felt a strong commitment to the domestic adoption process. Karen has a brother who was adopted, and as child, she lived on a street with at least four households with adopted children. “I grew up with it,” says Karen. “It was just the norm.” So when she and Scott decided to grown their family, it seemed only natural that they’d come to Adoption Connection. “I knew about Adoption Connection because I had volunteered… Read More

Jewish Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) will be paying tribute to a group of 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings making significant contributions to the vitality of the Jewish community when the agency holds its 14th Annual Emigre Community Gala on Sat., Feb.7, at San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis Hotel . These younger individuals, participants in a JFCS affiliate group called RJeneration, are part of a large and growing number of Russian-speaking Jews who, as volunteers and donors, are ensuring the continuity of the Jewish community for generations to come. “RJeneration members, their friends, and their families play an integral role in… Read More

Josef, an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor, never saw it coming. “I survived the Lodz Ghetto and three camp selections, but I didn’t see that a distant cousin who asked me to contribute to a special fund was stealing from me,” he said. Josef became so distraught that his Seniors At Home homecare attendant, Elvira, contacted his son. “He was very upset,” she said, “and I was worried he would have a stroke.” Son and father talked, and both agreed that the time had come for Josef to have his finances managed by a trusted third party: Seniors At Home’s Fiduciary Services… Read More

Susan Kolb, Board President and extraordinary JFCS and community leader for many decades, loves everything about us, from our programs at Parents Place andSeniors At Home to services that help those in urgent need. We recently sat down with her to learn more about her history and dedication to JFCS and the Jewish community. Tell us a bit about your background. I grew up in a wonderfully warm and embracing Jewish community in Oakland and moved to Los Angeles when I was 13. I went to high school there and college at UCLA. How did you become involved in… Read More