By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – The College Avenue Center will move Sept. 1 after 17 years at Beth Jacob Congregation to Temple Emanu-El, approximately a mile and a half north on College Avenue, Jewish Family Service has announced.
Although the move will be from the social hall of an Orthodox congregation to a larger area at a Reform congregation, hot kosher lunches will continue to be served to seniors attending the program, according to Meredith J. Morgenroth, JFS director of Social and Wellness Services.
Open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., College Avenue Center is best known for its hot kosher lunch, and soup and salad bar, according to a JFS announcement. “Favorite offerings include weekly movie screenings, meditation and yoga classes, and live entertainment, including singing, music, and dance. The center also offers daily exercise classes, arts and crafts, games of bingo and mah jongg, and cultural programs.”
In a telephone interview on Monday, Aug. 10, Morgenroth said the kosher meals will be prepared at JFS’s expanded Turk Family Center headquarters on Balboa Avenue, a campus which now incorporates a second building.
As part of the expansion, the social service organization recently installed a large “state of the art” kosher kitchen capable of providing food not only to the College Avenue Center, but to other older adult centers in San Diego County. “The capacity of that kitchen is approximately four times what we have at Beth Jacob,” Morgenroth said. Foodmobile, which brings kosher food to elderly shut-ins, also will be serviced from JFS’s new kitchen.
Having Foodmobile, the kosher food program at the centers, and the Hand Up Pantry (which provides food to the hungry) all operating from the same area “allows us to have shared fridge space and some common sense efficiencies by putting all the food in one location,” Morgenroth said.
Morgenroth said surveys of elderly clients attending the College Avenue Center indicated that very few were members of Beth Jacob Congregation, and that there were few opportunities for joint programming. Rand Levin, Beth Jacob’s administrator, was traveling outside the city and was not immediately available for comment.
In contrast, Morgenroth said, Temple Emanu-El has various kinds of programming that would appeal to the College Avenue Center’s senior clientele as well as opportunities for cross-programming and other synergies. “For example, they are having a production of Golda’s Balcony in November,” she said. “Our clientele will be able to participate in those types of activities that are already happening there.”
In addition, she said, Temple Emanu-El’s pre-school provides the prospect for “inter-generational activities” that are among the features at other JFS centers in the county.
Bottom line was that Temple Emanu-El seemed to be a better fit. “We want to make it one big community rather than split down the middle,” Morgenroth said. “Right now (at Beth Jacob) there isn’t a lot of interaction.”
Currently Jewish Family Service operates older adult centers or conducts programming at other Reform congregations, notably Beth Israel Congregation in University City, Temple Adat Shalom in Poway, and Temple Solel in Encinitas.
Morgenroth said a meeting was held recently at the College Avenue Center to explain the move and to take questions from 88 seniors who attended. Most of the questions dealt with access – was there suitable public or subsidized transportation to and from Temple Emanu-El, Morgenroth said. The seniors also received assurances that the suggested $4 donation asked for hot meals will remain the same. (Seniors who cannot afford the $4 are subsidized.)
At the end of the meeting, seniors were asked if any felt badly about the move. None raised his or her hand. Most if not all expressed excitement about the prospect of expanded programming, Morgenroth said.
The JFS official declined to say for how long JFS would occupy Temple Emanu-El, explaining that the agency does not discuss publicly the terms of its leases.
She did say that the Monday-through-Friday daytime program will be permitted to utilize the Reform congregation’s large social hall, sanctuary, library, board room and lobby for its programming. “They have been extremely generous with their space,” said Morgenroth.
Temple Emanu-El sits near the southwest corner of College Avenue and Del Cerro Avenue where the latter is intersected by Capri Drive.
Morgenroth said Sept. 1 will be a “soft opening” for the new location of the center, with more formal ceremonies possibly to be scheduled in October.
“We look forward to welcoming our longtime members and new participants alike to the College Avenue Center’s new home, just north of the 8,” said JFS CEO Michael Hopkins. “Working with Temple Emanu-El is part of Jewish Family Service’s ongoing goal of making new community partnerships and connections with increased synergy and services for our clients.”
“We’re delighted to build this partnership with Jewish Family Service to serve the needs of our community,” said Rabbi Devorah Marcus. “Everyone at Temple Emanu-El is looking forward to creating new programming that allows us all to participate in engaging, fun, and intergenerational activities as an extended family.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com