Family Promise is a national organization that leverages local resources (faith communities/congregations and non profit organizations) to provide temporary housing to unhoused families as they transition to permanent housing. Family Promise North Shore is based in Evanston and works with approximately 30 congregations in the North Shore, including Am Yisrael and five other synagogues. We encourage you to read more about the work of Family Promise: https://www.familypromisechicagons.org/
Now is the perfect time to join together with our community as we again host Family Promise at Am Yisrael. We hope you will help us welcome our guests June 30 through July 7.
You and your family can choose a shift – either serving and eating dinner with our guests, or spending the night at the synagogue. You can also volunteer to donate food for lunches that our volunteers pack each day and send off with our guests in the morning. The initial food shopping for lunches has already been taken care of, but if you are interested in shopping for food, you can sign up to be a mid-week “shopper” if we run out of some items. If you sign up to serve as a mid-week food shopper, we will provide you with instructions on specific items to purchase, including appropriate kashrut information, specific brands, etc. All food donations will have to be store bought and provided in unopened packages.
As a Jewish community, we have spent the last months feeling a range of emotions, including the fear and isolation that comes from rising anti-Semitism and also the hope and promise of our collective actions in response to unsettling threats. We urge you to consider getting involved in Family Promise now as a way to get to know our neighbors in the North Shore and as a way to build rich, diverse networks of community support.
Headed up by Annette Doherty and Aleeza Strubel, we have a loyal and reliable pool of volunteers, but we are always looking to increase our numbers.