By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – Our Jewish sages contend that both the first and second temples in ancient Jerusalem were destroyed because our people engaged in sinat chanim, senseless hatred. When we commemorate Tisha B’Av, remembering those and other tragedies in Jewish history, we engage in introspection and lamentation.
In addition, suggests Beverley Pamensky, the executive director of the Kindness Initiative, we might want to reflect this Tisha B’Av, which begins on Wednesday evening, July 26, on how we can help our fellow Jews who have fallen on hard times – an obvious reversal of the unkindness and factionalism that twice led to the downfall of ancient Jerusalem. Donations of cash or household goods to her organization, as well as volunteering, help Jews down on their luck get back on their feet, both financially and emotionally.
Selwyn Isakow, a South African-born philanthropist who immigrated to San Diego, started the Kindness Initiative three years ago. He is also responsible for organizing the Hebrew Free Loan of San Diego, and the community-wide Shabbat San Diego celebrations. Pamensky, since immigrating to the United States 35 years ago, has seen long service in San Diego’s Jewish community, both as a staff member of the Jewish Federation of San Diego and later as a fundraiser for the San Diego Jewish Academy. In South Africa, she had been a teacher.
The Kindness Initiative matches Jews who have financial and/or other problems with “volunteer angels” who find them financial help and link to other resources offered by the large range of social agencies and government offices in San Diego County.
Pamensky told of a young woman whose father died and from whose mother she was estranged. “She reached out to us in the beginning for financial assistance for rent relief,” Pamensky related. “We provided her with a monthly stipend. One of our programs is called ‘Adopt a Kindness Family,’ where a donor can for up to a year provide $360 a month, so we secured that for her. She then attended a community college for two years. She is now admitted to San Diego State University, where she wishes to do social work.”
Since becoming a “member” of the Kindness Initiative, the young lady “has become involved in the Jewish community,” Pamensky said. “While she always knew she was Jewish, she never lived Jewishly. She has been introduced to the Hillel movement on campus. We have a volunteer angel who has been more than remarkable; she has taken this young girl under her wing and includes her in the Jewish holidays, and has her for Shabbat. We helped her obtain affordable housing through the university and last year helped her secure a position as a nanny in the local community. She has been working with that family for the better part of a year now.”
Pamensky said that “in this case, it was really a situation of providing a framework for someone who had a clear pathway forward. She came to us from a bad situation. Her determination to better herself really helped her along the way as well.”
The young lady is called a “member” of the Kindness Initiative, rather than a “client” because the organization wants “to provide these people with a sense of belonging at the agency,” Pamensky said.
Another member, until his recent death, was a senior citizen whom “we assisted for the better part of two years,” Pamensky said. “He had no family, no one here in San Diego. We helped secure housing and food resources. His angel visited him many times when he was in a hospital setting and provided companionship for him along the way.”
When the gentleman died last week, “his relatives on the East Coast were very comforted that there had been an agency in San Diego that took the time to make sure that his needs had been met.”
In this particular instance, the family had arranged for the man to be buried back East, but had no such arrangements been possible, Pamensky said, the Kindness Initiative would have found a way to provide for him a Jewish burial in San Diego.
In our interview, Pamensky said that there are currently 16 volunteer angels who have helped approximately 200 members over the three years since the Kindness Initiative was founded in 2020. It would be ideal if there could be a 1:1 ratio between members and angels, Pamensky said, but volunteering for the Kindness Initiative is not like other kinds of volunteering.
“It is unlike just asking someone to go on an errand for somebody,” she said. “It really is acquiring a relationship involving experience with that individual.” The ideal volunteer is someone who has a background either in the field of mental health, or teaching, social work, or psychology,” Pamensky said. While there are volunteers without background in any of these fields, “we recognize that the role that they play is somewhat demanding in terms of understanding the needs of some of these people and being familiar with how to advocate for these people.”
The Kindness Agency cooperates with other private and governmental agencies to get members the help that they may need, Pamensky said. “We have to determine what the root cause of the member’s situation is, and then our case manager will put together a plan of action for emergency relationships and support. In many cases, we try to tap into other resources in the community through other agencies.”
Next, members are paired with a volunteer angel “who will help them navigate this range of resources and services that we may have recommended for their needs,” Pamensky said. “Sometimes all they need is a mentor or a guide, so that they know if there are difficulties along the way they can call up their volunteer angel to assist them by making a phone call for them.”
To the extent possible, the Kindness Initiative encourages members to make the necessary phone calls themselves, “rather than doing it for them, because we want them to have some sense of accomplishment being able to go to the resource and seeing the result of the work that they have been able to do,” Pamensky said. “We find that people who are dependent on us to do the work are not always the most successful in the program or the process.”
For those who do not have the capability to follow through on their own behalf, she said, “it is all the more important for us to provide the service of a volunteer angel to secure their benefits.”
While some other agencies may provide one kind of assistance to a client, but not other kinds of assistance, the Kindness Initiative takes a holistic approach, working with the member to solve problems of many different kinds.
“The situations and the problems we are facing really are not solvable by one individual agency,” Pamensky said. “This is really a collaboration to address the issues and to seek resources for these individuals. The needs are great and part of the work we are doing now is to spread awareness in the community. … There are so many people not aware of the extent of the problem. A study conducted prior to the establishment of the Kindness Initiative was that 20 percent of the Jewish community in San Diego are living below the poverty line, and that was prior to COVID and prior to the downturn in the economy. It can only be that there are more people experiencing hardships and our job is to make them aware of the work that we do and the service that we can access for them.” Twenty percent of San Diego’s Jewish community amounts to more than 10,000 people, according to Pamensky.
To qualify for free assistance from the Kindness Initiative, one must be a member of the Jewish community – either by being Jewish oneself, or by living in a household where there is a Jewish community member, or by being a non-Jew who works for a Jewish agency such as the Jewish Federation, Seacrest Village, Jewish Family Service, or a synagogue.
By what measure does the Kindness Initiative determine who is a Jew? Pamensky said it’s typically a matter of self-identification, but if someone not Jewish were to try to access the service, it probably would be determined during the intake process that the person is not Jewish. In such a case, a caseworker would diplomatically refer that person to another agency.
The Kindness Initiative accepts no government money, only private funds, so it is able to restrict its services to the Jewish community, Pamensky said. Word of mouth is the best way to alert potential members to the service, but the agency also does some advertising. Rabbis at congregations and day school admissions officers throughout San Diego, among others, are asked to recommend the Kindness Initiative to Jews in need.
If people know of a Jewish neighbor who is suffering from poverty or other debilitating problems, they should encourage him or her to contact the Kindness Initiative via (858) 216-1666 or through its website linked here. Pamensky said it is important that a potential member make the initial contact with the agency, so that he or she will not be embarrassed by an unsolicited contact from the Kindness Initiative.
She said that the Kindness Initiative has a yearly operating budget of $770,000 and also has an endowment fund at the Jewish Community Foundation. While more financial donations always are always welcome, to date “we have been successful in our fundraising to sustain the work we do,” Pamensky said.
A of last February, the Kindness Initiative took over San Diego G’mach, the Jewish community gift closet, which accepts donations of household items, bedding, linens, baby supplies, clothing, medical devices, and furniture, among other items, to help impoverished Jews to assemble what they may need for their households. The service is now called Kindness G’mach, with Karen Lock serving as its manager. While many of these items can be stored at the Kindness G’mach warehouse, furniture is too bulky and so arrangements are made for direct transfer from donor to recipient, according to Pamensky.
Kindness G’mach may be reached by potential donors via (858) 549-1877.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor emeritus of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com