June 30, 2020 marked the end of the 2019-2020 Fiscal Year. JFCS extends a sincere thank you to the following Board Members who have given so graciously and generously of themselves over the years.
- Debbie Friedman (Past President)
- Amy Gilbert
- Stephanie Mutchnick (Past President)
- Carole Snyder
- Diane Tobin
We extend special thanks to Peter Resnik as he becomes Immediate Past President and welcome Robin Stratton for her two-year term as President. We are excited to welcome the following new Board Members for three-year terms, which started on July 1.
Vas Abramov
Vasiliy (Vas) Abramov is a local entrepreneur, mentor and technologist with a focus on medical device and life science companies. Vas moved to Louisville as a teenager. He was born in Moscow, Russia and to escape anti-Semitism, Vas, his parents and his younger brother moved to the US in 1994, making Louisville their new home.
He now serves as the President of Occam Design. Vas has over 20 patents and has successfully developed more than 30 life science products. Vas is an alumni of Leadership KY program and was Vogt award finalist as part of MB Device company, where he served as CEO. Vas is an active member of the local life science community and often serves as a mentor to young companies. He is on the board of The Chamber Theatre, a local theater company where he also assists with set design and construction.
Pam Alaimo
Always a contributor and a leader, as a young mom, Pam was deeply involved as a Committee Chair for her children’s activities, as well as devoted time to her Temple, where she held various leadership positions and eventually became a member of the board. Over a 20-year period, she enhanced Temple committees, established procedures and created a speaker luncheon series for women. Her leadership was recognized and earned her the Woman of Achievement Award representing her congregation.
Originally from New Jersey, Pam graduated from the University of Maryland and called Atlanta home for 30 years. She now welcomes the Bluegrass as her adopted home state and volunteers with the Kentucky Center for Performing Arts and the Waterfront Botanical Gardens.
Remarried last year, she has a blended family, her son and daughter, her husband’s three married children and four grandchildren among them. On weekends you can find her biking in the Parklands, discovering a new restaurant or exploring the region.
Corey Buckman
Corey was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and lived several places before settling in Kentucky her senior year of high school. She is a UK alum and moved to Louisville in 2008 to be with her now-husband as he completed law school. She and her husband, Adam, have one son (Jacob – 3.5) and one dog (Minnie – almost 15!). Corey joined the Temple in 2012 and has been on their Board of Trustees since 2014. She is also their membership chair, co-chair for the Engagement Pillar that focuses on tikkun olam activities for the congregation and community, and taught in their religious school for six years. Corey has grown up in the world of social action and tikkun olam, volunteering with organizations and leading community efforts since she was in elementary and middle school.
She wants the Jewish community of Louisville to be the face of compassion and justice across the state. Corey has worked for political campaigns, in state government, and is currently an implementation project manager for a major software firm that focuses in data management and analytics.
See the full Fiscal Year 2021 Board of Directors here
JFCS has been proud to host the presentation of the Jeff and Phyllis Osbourn Scholarship at our annual MOSAIC dinner. With the emergence of the COVID-19 Pandemic, this year we have chosen to present this award virtually to ensure the safety of the community. The Jeff and Phyllis Osbourn Scholarship Fund at the Legacy Foundation of Kentuckiana (formerly Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Foundation) recognizes an immigrant or refugee pursuing a career in nursing or other high-demand healthcare fields.
The Osbourn Scholarship fits well at MOSAIC and with Jewish Family & Career Services because of the agency’s regionally recognized focus on re-credentialing and career laddering for refugees and immigrants in Greater Louisville.
Harriet N. Ako is the 2020 Osburn Scholarship winner. Here is Harriet’s story in her own words.
My life has taken me through different education systems in countries, including Ghana, the United Kingdom and America. My diverse educational background has enabled me to connect well and understand individuals from different walks of life. Nursing as a career entails patient and family centered care, patient teaching, preventative measures and optimal patient outcome. I believe my familiarity and background in both Psychology and Sciences would enable me to do so well.
My desire to join healthcare as a Nurse stems from a collective of reasons. My first focus, of course, is on experience but ultimately what I can provide on a global scale and what I can contribute for the betterment of healthcare in general.
Ultimately, I would like to be a Nurse Anesthetist. I believe that learning through experience and building a strong foundation is essential. Therefore, I just got offered a part-time job as a Nursing Assistant in a Thoracic and Vascular Surgery Unit. That, I believe, will help me gain the fundamental understanding of being a Nurse. Nursing career allows Nurses to work with different health care professionals. My goal after Nursing school is to work as a civilian and then join the U.S. military as a Nurse.
At age 16 in 2010, I moved from the rural part of Ghana to the United Kingdom with no basic computer knowledge and difficulty understanding the British accent. With hard work and determination, I graduated with an Associate Degree in Applied Science (2012) with a focus on Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and achieved a 4.00 GPA. I continued my education to Manchester Metropolitan University for a Bachelor’s in Biomedical Science but was cut short to a certificate due to inadequate financing and permanent residency expiration.
My stepfather, who decided not to support my University education, also refused to sign a renewal of my United Kingdom permanent residency in 2015. After exhausting every possible help point, my only choice remained moving to Ghana or becoming an illegal immigrant in the U.K.
I moved back to Ghana in 2015 at age 21, and fortunately, my husband moved me to live in America in 2016. After our first daughter was born in January 2017, I went back to University of Alabama at Birmingham in August 2017. During the spring semester of March 2018, I was involved in a car accident while pregnant with our second daughter but stayed determined and graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree in General Studies focusing on Science and Psychology in December 2018. Finally, I moved to Louisville in May 2019 for Nursing School. Through determination, resiliency and self-motivation, the possibility of achieving a goal is endless.
When single mom Sherry* first came to JFCS, she was seeking help finding an apartment.
She and her kindergarten son Bryce* were sharing a single space in a West End rooming house. Sherry was understandably concerned about her son’s safety and development in this unstable environment, especially as he started school.
When Sherry enrolled in JFCS Family Strengthening, she and her coach Avery began the assessment and goal setting process. In addition to housing issues, two major challenges Sherry faced were her limited education and a debilitating health condition. Sherry decided to focus on three goals: obtaining safe, stable housing; improving her employment potential by getting a GED; and, applying for disability benefits to ensure a more stable income.
Despite the challenges she faced, Sherry was committed to creating a better life for Bryce. Each of Sherry’s goals involved a complex process of multiple steps. Though Sherry had a strong, local network of family and friends, they lacked the resources to support her in the ways she needed. JFCS was able to provide that support.
Avery helped Sherry navigate complicated and confusing systems while ensuring she had access to essential resources. With Avery’s help and a modest amount of financial assistance, Sherry obtained a copy of her birth certificate, a first step in applying for income-based housing. She completed the Section 8 housing application and was scheduled for an appointment to receive a voucher that would allow her to begin searching for an apartment.
With JFCS and Avery by her side, Sherry located convenient GED locations and applied to restart her educational path. Sherry learned that to apply for disability benefits, she would need updated medical documentation and began looking for doctors who could help. In addition to consistent coaching, counseling and technical support, Avery helped Sherry access the JFCS consumer-choice food pantry. With each step she accomplished, Sherry gained confidence in her ability to achieve her goals.
Then, COVID-19 hit. The disruptions and uncertainty of the pandemic have had a significant impact on Sherry’s confidence and determination. Housing Authority offices closed, GED classes were postponed and doctor appointments cancelled. Sherry’s progress toward her goals stalled, and she now has the added stress of keeping her kindergartner safe and busy all day while managing her own anxiety, depression and chronic pain.
Like everyone, social distancing recommendations have impacted Sherry, but JFCS has provided complete continuity of service to the family. Avery and Sherry have continued remote coaching and counseling appointments since March. Sherry and Bryce receive JFCS Food Pantry customized home deliveries to ensure they have their basic needs met.
The pace is different, but Sherry’s goals and the services she receives from JFCS Family Strengthening are the same. Through the pandemic, she will have the benefit of skilled, compassionate coaching and counseling that support her sense of dignity and purpose, and helps her maintain progress toward her life goals.
* Names changed for privacy.
The COVID-19 crisis continues to impact communities across the country as individuals face health concerns, furloughs and unemployment. But according to Kristina Mielke, Career & Employment Specialist at JFCS, refugees and immigrants have been among the hardest hit and face unique challenges from the crisis.
Mielke has worked with refugees and immigrants for the past 12 years and is one of the leading regional experts in re-credentialing, re-certification, employment and career counseling. JFCS has 112 clients in its career program for refugees and immigrants. It is designed to help these foreign-born neighbors return to careers they had in their previous country or to help them find new career paths in the United States.
Mielke was recently featured on a webinar with the Louisville Metro Office of Globalization. You can watch the full presentation on Re-Certifications and Re-Credentialing here.
In a Q&A, Mielke discussed how the COVID-19 crisis specifically impacts refugee and immigrant communities.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How is this crisis impacting JFCS’s refugee and immigrant clients and the work you do with them?
A lot of clients who have been laid off are wanting to use this time to get ahead, because all of the clients in the program are working as they’re also trying to look for another job, or they’re trying to take re-credentialing boards. So, they are thinking “I have all this time off, I really want to get a head start on what my next step is going to be.” Unfortunately, a lot of the same organizations that we use to help them with all of these steps are closed. So our clients are kind of at a stalemate.
Then we also have immigrants, specifically, who are very scared about the public charge rule. I can say immigrants and refugees, because even though refugees are excluded from the public charge, there’s still a lot of fear within the immigrant communities overall about using public benefits. Many in this community have been laid off; many of them have been furloughed. First, they’re scared to take advantage of unemployment benefits because there hasn’t been a very a clear message that tells people, “Regardless of your immigration status, everybody is eligible for unemployment insurance if you lost your job because of this crisis.” So, there have been a lot of fears about that.
Then fears about needing to use food stamps or needing to go onto KTAP because they don’t really know how long this could last. In general, people are very afraid that this crisis is going to affect them a lot longer. Even their immigration status, their future in this country, they’re really worried about if they’re going to be able to stay or not.
Q: Are there specific things you’re doing when you’re communicating with clients to try and help dispel some of those fears?
I have taken screenshots of a lot of the jargon that’s going into the Families Act (Families First Coronavirus Response Act) where it specifically says that any person with a social security number who loses their job would be eligible for unemployment insurance.
It’s coordinating a lot of outside resources, and either having it translated into their language or sitting with them on the phone to talk to them about what that means for themselves and their families.
Q: For people who don’t follow immigrant and refugee stories year-round, what would you want someone to know about what those communities are facing now?
Immigrants and refugees are among the hardest hit by a crisis like this. They are among the hardest hit in that many of them are still deemed essential workers because they work in factories that are making or supplying the essentials that the government has deemed necessary. They are among the most vulnerable populations, least likely to take advantage of any benefits that the government is giving at this time, and they’re also among the most exposed to the virus itself.
Q: What are some concerns in the long term? Obviously, there’s the immediate impact of this crisis, but are there things looking a few months from now or a year from now that you’re worried about?
One of the biggest worries for me is a lot of clients are experiencing some kind of PTSD. For many of our refugees, specifically people from the Congo and Cuba, this kind of crisis can be very triggering for them. I can also say that any refugee here is coming from a place of scarcity. So, when they go to the supermarket, and they can’t find anything, that can really bring them back to living in camp and having to depend on people from the UNHRC, World Health Organization, or the World Food Program, to bring them food. So, that can be triggering. Then for those who have lived through epidemics and pandemics before, it can also be very difficult.
To learn more about services available at JFCS, contact services@jfcslouisville.org or 502-452-6341 x 120.