Last year at Swansboro Elementary a few RJCL volunteers tested a new program called Readers Cafe'.
It is designed to be like "Oprah's Book Club!" but reading with a small group of students during their lunch period. We would welcome all volunteers. No teaching experience is necessary, just a sense of fun.
Top 5 Reasons to Volunteer with Richmond Jewish Coalition Literacy for Reading
-Readers Cafe' is a short commitment of 4-6 weeks.
-You will be able to eat school cafeteria food again.
-The chairs in the library are small so you will feel like a giant
-The books have great plots and some humor.
-The time you spend with the children is priceless.

I recently returned from an amazing whirlwind of a Mission to Israel with six other forty-ish men from across the United States. The Mission was called "Lunch with the Legends of Israel," and over the course of three days we met with three of Israel's leading philanthropists Raya Strauss, Eitan Wertheimer and Benny Landa.
Our mission started on May 18, when we departed Tel Aviv and headed north, traveling through Haifa, up to Nahariya, a city just a few miles from the border with Lebanon, where we met Raya Strauss and her husband Shmuel Ben-Dror.  Raya's parents emigrated from Germany in the 1930's because her mother "saw the writing on the wall."  They joined a few other families and settled in the Galilee area in what is now Nahariya. Raya's father started a dairy with two cows behind their home and created a food business that has become a multinational conglomerate, producing products ranging from ice cream to hummus.  After Raya and her brother took the company public, Raya left the business to pursue philanthropy full time. We visited three of Raya's projects during our day, all of which are based in the Galilee region, which is an economically depressed region of Israel and located close to the border with Lebanon.

In late July a group of nine teens from Emek Hefer, Israel, will be visiting Richmond for two weeks, as part of the P2K Summer Teen Experience.
The teens will reunite with their Richmond peers whom they met in Israel last summer. Together the 17 teens from both communities will explore Richmond and the area, learn about Jewish life in the community, and discuss their identity and connection to Israel. They will take part in community service projects, visit different sites around town and spend two days in Washington D.C., doing a program prepared specifically for our group by "Panim."

A group of community business professionals attended the Federation's Enterprise Circle event on June 4 at the Medical College of Virginia. They heard Dr. Sheldon Retchin, chief executive officer and vice president for Health Sciences of the VCU Health System, describe the medical-care and academic operations at the 779-bed teaching hospital.  He has academic responsibility for the schools of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing and allied health.
The Enterprise Circle is designed to create both networking and life-long learning opportunities for new business professionals in our community.

Through the enthusiastic efforts of Dr. Juan Villalona, Dr. Ofer Feder and Dr. Bob Weisberger, a new Federation venue has been formed to engage healthcare professionals in the Richmond community in various volunteer activities locally and in Israel.
During this process, the trio has developed a new name for the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond's Healthcare Division - The Richmond United Professional Health Alliance - TRUPHA (which means medicine in Hebrew), and has created a new logo for the division. This new initiative is not a replacement for the Maimonides Society, but rather a complimentary component to engage healthcare professionals in the work of the Federation.
Villalona and Ofer (along with their wives, Sara and Stefanie) were very moved and excited by their visit to the Barzalai Hospital in Ashkelon in September 2008 as part of the Sherry Rose Emerging Leaders Mission to Israel.
They witnessed how healthcare professionals in Israel were engaged with the hospital. A key goal of TRUPHA is to develop connections to Israel among Richmond healthcare professionals, within and outside of the Jewish community.
They also envision an opportunity through Partnership 2000 to explore volunteer opportunities with the Hillel Yafe Hospital in Hadera. The group is updating the list of healthcare professionals in the Federation's database and developing a strategic plan before launching the new initiative to the community.