News from the Heart

Dear Friends,

It is a great honor and privilege for me to serve as President of Jewish Family Service. My roots in the Nashville community date back as many years as JFS is old. I have seen the agency grow from one professional to now three professionals providing direct social services. The agency has grown to serving over 1600 clients through 17 different programs.

Our history shows that we began with helping settle immigrants, servicing the needy and helping Jewish families adopt when they had no other place to turn to. We now have our own adoption agency, Adoption Journeys. We not only help Jewish couples in their quest to adopt but also the general community which includes other groups who, if not for JFS, would not be served such as the LGBT community. JFS has evolved into a full social service agency with a spectrum of services.

One of the aspects that I admire most about JFS is when our staff
sees a need in the community we are ready to spring into action to address that need. Our most recent example of that is the Chaver (friend) Mentor program. Our social workers noticed that there are more and more children in the Jewish community who are being raised in non-traditional families, whether that be a single parent, by a relative such as grandparents or children who could benefit from additional adult support. The Chaver Mentor Program is designed to emphasize one-on-one relationships between a Jewish adult and these very children. JFS—seeing a need in the community and creating a program to address it. That is how we operate.

We could not continue all of our programs or add new ones without your support, monetarily, or from our volunteers – a big THANK YOU.

We look forward to a wonderful year.

Nan Speller
JFS President