JFCS is excited to announce its ‘Next Century’ location, opening in 2018

Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis (JFCS), along with Pope Architects, is excited to announce its “Next Century” location, which will be open in early 2018! JFCS – along with Minnesota-based Pope Architects and the building’s founding sponsor, the Stillman Family Foundation – is renovating an existing office and warehouse building in Golden Valley to create a welcoming home for 120 employees and clients in its 30-plus programs and services. The newly renovated building will provide JFCS with a permanent home for the first time in its 107-year-history.

 

Joining JFCS in this new space is non-profit partner PRISM, which serves more than 6,000 people each year through its food shelf, housing programs, children’s programs, and thrift shop. This will be the first time since PRISM’s founding in 1970 that it has been housed in a facility planned specifically to meet the unique needs of its services and participants.

 

The building’s innovative design will encourage collaboration and connection and foster staff and community engagement, while also providing privacy for clients. The Golden Valley site will be a welcoming, community-building home for volunteers, staff and other community members. It will also be equipped with more efficient and innovative technology.

 

Through an interactive process with JFCS and PRISM, Pope Architects planned and designed a transformation of the existing Richter Building at 5905 Golden Valley Rd. The design offers a collaborative, flexible work space, with informal and formal meeting spaces, a community event room, meditation/prayer rooms, updated technology, adjustable-height desks and more. In addition, the portion of the building to be leased by PRISM includes a grocery-store-like food shelf and a large retail space for PRISM’s Shop for Change Thrift Shop. The two-level space is strategically organized to facilitate collaboration and shared resources.

 

“Our new building provides a great opportunity for staff, volunteers and donors to better serve the local community with the very best in professional, compassionate and caring service,” said Judy Halper, JFCS Chief Executive Officer. “Throughout life, each person experiences a time when he or she can benefit from help and support – and we are here to serve everyone.”

 

Since 1910, JFCS has provided programs, services, and support for thousands in the Jewish and broader communities – from older adults and people needing employment to children and families. The agency also provides community engagement programs and counseling and mental health support. There have been a few locations from which JFCS has operated these services over the past century, but JFCS has never owned its own building. It is now embarking on a path to a permanent home where it hopes to serve the community for another century…or longer!

 

Stillman Family Foundation

 

The Stillman family has been a supporter of JFCS for decades, both financially and as volunteers. Andy Stillman serves on the JFCS Board of Directors. He and his father, Ralph Stillman, who sadly passed away earlier this year, helped provide the vision for JFCS’ new home, and the Stillman Family Foundation is the building’s founding sponsor.

 

Andy and his wife, Cass Stillman, have supported JFCS for years because it not only serves the Jewish community, but people of all backgrounds without regards to race, color, creed or religious belief.

 

“I saw this as an opportunity to invest in an organization that reaches most facets of need while building bridges to the community in what is the spirit of Judaism,” Andy said. “A place that is the center of our community for help.” He added that the opportunity for JFCS to join forces with a leading food shelf like PRISM allows it to become the “go-to” place for those in need in our community.