Thank you to our Volunteer Phoners!

Outreach is so grateful to those of you who stepped forward yet again to make calls to our Emanu-El community. Thanks as well to those ‘first time callers’ who joined their ranks to wish everyone Shanah Tovah.

Your phone calls allow the shul to keep in touch with community members, and learn if anything is needed. The last seven months have shown there have been challenges for us all. Outreach salutes the many volunteers who make our little shul so vibrant in normal times, and so caring in these extraordinary times.

Emanu-El Outreach here for all phases of COVID-19 response

As British Columbia enters the second phase of its pandemic response, Congregation Emanu-El Outreach volunteers continue to offer support to our community.

Congregation Emanu-El is helping the community

May 17, 2020 4 pm – Outreach Phone Caller Training — Thank you again to the volunteers who made the phone calls to every family in our community before Pesaḥ. The phone calls are one way we help keep our kehillah connected.  We’re continuing to phone congregants who requested that we keep in contact with them. Our volunteers do errands, including grocery/prescription or other deliveries, and tech training on Zoom, Facetime and Skype. Several resources are also available for other more specific needs.

Community Support: Our Outreach Team is Active

• It’s a very difficult time and not always easy to appreciate who needs support.
• If you feel you’d benefit from having regular phone calls at this time, or help with shopping, or you need a meal or some kind of support, please email the Synagogue’s Outreach team through Jill Swartz at jillswartz@gmail.com. We’re unable to visit people right now, but will resume visits again in the future.
• Also, if you’re interested in volunteering to help with community support, please email Outreach at Jill Swartz’s email listed above.

Thank you
Jill Swartz for the Outreach Team

“Brrrr it’s cold out!”“Brrrr it’s cold out!”

As the days have become shorter and the cold and wet nights longer, our thoughts are with our less fortunate, vulnerable friends in Victoria.

Presently, Avodah provides support through our ongoing commitments to these local agencies:

• 1UP Single Parent Resource Centre
• Burnside Gorge Community Association
• Out of the Rain
• Quadra Village Community Centre

Additionally Avodah has had special projects like providing fleece blankets to the Dandelion Society and delivering hundreds of pairs of underwear to numerous small groups.

We rely on the generosity of congregants and friends to continue this work and to increase our commitments.
Please consider making an end-of-year donation to our shul’s social action group, Avodah.

Outreach needs your help!

Outreach is Congregation Emanu-El’s offer of support when you or your family are in transition. It may be a birth, it may be grief, sickness, an accident or changes in personal status. Sometimes changes are joyous and sometimes you may really need care and support. Too often we think we need to go it alone when dealing with change, but what you may need is Outreach. Some services Outreach provides:

• • Cooked meals
  • Rides to appointments or to synagogue
  • A warm visit
  • An open heart to listen

 The Outreach committee will be there for you as much or as little as you want. If you or your loved ones or friends need support, please call us. You can reach the Outreach committee by calling the synagogue office at (250) 382-0615. The committee is fully committed to maintaining confidentiality.

The Outreach committee is made up of congregants helping congregants. And Outreach needs your help! We especially need people who can cook, drive, visit, check in by phone, and deliver food. If you want a periodic mitzvah or want to be part of the Outreach team, please contact jillswartz@gmail.com.

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Boys & Girls Club Needs Care Families

Saturday, December 1 between 11 am – 12 pm — We have invited Debi O’Boyle, Manager for Care Families & Quality Assurance, Boys & Girls Club of Greater Victoria to speak to our congregation during the service on Saturday, December 1^st about the current needs of their program. Boys & Girls Club of Greater Victoria has responded to the needs of children, youth, and families in the Capital Region for 58 years. They are a not-for-profit agency accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitative Facilities (CARF). They are affiliated with Boys & Girls Clubs of Canada.

For more than 30 years, Care Families have supported youth while they attend Boys & Girls Club programming. Each Care Family supports one youth at a time and receives 24 hour support from qualified staff. Adolescence is a time when youth learn skills, practice healthy relationships, and take on increased responsibility in preparation for adulthood. Care Families support youth learning life skills and lessons—sometimes for the first time and help youth get on the right path to becoming successful self-sufficient adults.  For more information go to website: https://bgcvic.org/become-a-host-family/

KAIROS Blanket Exercise Workshop

On October 22 from noon to 2:30 pm in the St. John the Divine Anglican Church Hall at 925 Balmoral Street, Congregation Emanu-El, the Community of St. John the Divine and Greater Victoria Acting Together (GVAT) will host a KAIROS Blanket Exercise Workshop.

Bring items for homeless to Brechner’s Open House

Congregation Emanu-El’s Youth Group is helping Avodah collect toiletries and other items for the homeless.

Call for Volunteers for HeroWork’s Anawim House project

HeroWork is a charitable organization that renovates non-profits community infrastructure through fast-paced leadership-driven events called Radical Renovations. HeroWork does this at a fraction of the normal cost and time, through fast-paced renovation events. These are akin to a modern-day version of an old fashioned barn-raising.