Charleston JCC Announces Re-organization

Five years ago, the Charleston JCC sold its building and land on Raoul Wallenberg Blvd. The building, which served the Charleston Jewish Community since the early 1960’s, is now the home of Congregation Dor Tikvah. From 2015 through today, the JCC continued to operate as a JCC Without Walls providing programs and services to the broad community using venues throughout the greater Charleston area. As time went on, it became increasingly evident to the JCC Board of Directors that it would be more efficient to provide the same financial resources to other Jewish organizations in the area, rather than to try to conduct actual programs on its own. The result is a re-organization of the JCC into the Charleston JCC Foundation – an organization that will be making grants to Jewish organizations using the proceeds from the foundation that was created after the sale of the building.

At a meeting recently, new board members and officers were elected. The officers are President, Harry Nadler; Treasurer, Ben Chase and Secretary, Andy Slotin. In addition to these three officers who are also trustees, Cynthia Ava, Leah Chase, Jeffrey Cohen, Billy Olasov, Eve Sokol, Tamar Sternfeld, and Patricia Sykes were elected as board members.

The vision of programs that will be considered for funding will generally be consistent with the types of programs that the former JCC would have conducted. Criteria and guidelines will be available soon for community organizations to help guide them in submitting proposals. During the winter of 2021 The Board will accept proposals from eligible organizations in the Tri-County area with the expectation of awarding grants for approved programs shortly after that.

The Board of Directors is very excited about this re-organization and looks forward to partnering with all the Jewish organizations in the area in continuing the long-standing tradition and legacy of the Charleston JCC by bringing quality programs to the Jewish and general community for the benefit of all of Charleston.