Shalom Friends,
With Pesach just around the corner, the phrase "manna from heaven" has been stuck in my head. Since this is also the time of the year that we start working on the temple budget for the coming fiscal year, I've also been thinking even more than usual about income, expenses and the persistent gap between them. At first blush, there isn't much connection between these two things. But in fact, there is quite a bit of manna from heaven that finds its way into our temple coffers.
Naturally, Congregation Shir Tikvah draws its primary financial support from its members -- our dues, tuition payments, building fund payments, donations and so forth. But we are also fortunate to receive support from many community sources. In this season of remembering how manna from heaven sustained our ancestors in the desert, I'd like to highlight some of the ways that our shul is sustained by the larger Jewish community.
Our Family Education program is supported by a generous grant from the Alliance for Jewish Education, which is part of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit. Aside from receiving funding, we also receive information, guidance, and support from the professional staff of the Alliance. Our partnership with the Alliance has been in place for many years and has helped us to strengthen and continually improve our family education program.
The Jewish Federation also provides us with scholarship funds each year to help offset the impact on our budget of families being unable to pay tuition. Because of this support, we never have to turn away a student whose parents are unable to afford school. Federation also gives us a grant to offset the cost of our special needs teacher.
In February we were delighted to receive a special grant from the Hermelin-Davidson Center for Congregation Excellence, which was established by the late local philanthropists David Hermelin and Bill Davidson to strengthen congregations' education programs. We qualified for this grant by participating in an in-depth assessment of our Family Education program; the money will be used for improvements recommended by the assessors. Take a look at Wren Hack's column in this Schrier to learn more about that grant and how we are spending the money.
We are in the process of applying for another grant, from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to help us beef up our temple security. This is a special grant available in 2010 to non-profit organizations in the Detroit area. A security expert from Federation performed a risk assessment for us and has been helping us gather the necessary information for the application. We may not be selected to receive this grant, but I'm quite sure that we would not even considered applying for it without Federation's assistance and support.
Because our congregation is not physically located in the heart of the Detroit Jewish community, we sometimes feel separated from that community. But we are linked to the larger community in many significant ways, financial and otherwise. We are not alone, and we could not do what we do alone. The support that we receive from the community really does sustain this congregation and makes it possible for us to enjoy a richer Jewish experience than our own resources would permit. It's not exactly the same as the food that fell from the skies in the desert, but we are enormously blessed to have it. When you give thanks at your seders for the freedom of the Jewish people, please also give thanks for all that Shir Tikvah receives from the Jewish community of Detroit.
B'Shalom,