A Look Back
Welcome to our 90th Anniversary page! Here, you will learn more about how we have served the community in the last 90 years. Click here to watch a video about all we’ve done. This page will be updated regularly as we move forward with our Throwback Thursday campaign on Facebook. You can help us celebrate by sharing your connection to JFS. Whether we served a loved one decades ago or you volunteered with us recently, please share your experience with Debbie Feit at dfeit@jfsdetroit.org or 248.592.2674.
In the 48 years we’ve been providing transportation services, a lot has changed: the clients, the drivers, the cars. But one thing remains the same: our commitment to provide safe, reliable rides to those who would otherwise be unable to attend jobs, medical appointments, religious services and more.
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Our 90 years of serving older adults has taken many forms. From Kosher Meals on Wheels to free brain health workshops through Mind University.
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Our 1956 annual report made JFS’s goal clear; decades later, we’re still working to keep families strong. Whether assisting with public benefits enrollment, providing counseling or ensuring that basic needs are being met, we work with community members to make life manageable.
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Whether providing counseling, health care navigation services or wellness classes, JFS has spent 90 years helping community members live happy, healthy lives.
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Whether providing friendly visitors or a little help with benefits enrollment, JFS has spent 90 years helping older adults live safely, and with dignity, in the comfort of their own homes.
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We at Jewish Family Service offer our heartfelt condolences for the loss of Helen Shevin, former JFS board president. Her contributions to JFS were many, as her president’s letter from our 1981-1982 annual report above will attest. May her memory and legacy live on through us all.
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Whether providing older adults with Kosher Meals on Wheels or food vouchers to families in crisis, JFS has spent 90 years ensuring that the basic needs of our community members are being met.
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Whatever the reason someone finds themselves in need, JFS is here—and has been here since 1928—providing basic needs assistance, counseling, transportation and many other critical services.
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For 90 years, Jewish Family Service has ensured that the older adults in our community receive the help they need, be it transportation, counseling, friendly visitors, or simply having what they need to ensure a happy Hanukkah.
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It’s been 39 years since the Goldberg family started the Goldberg Thanksgiving Distribution as a way to honor their late parents, who believed that no one should ever go hungry. Thanks to their generosity, as well as that of our community, families served by JFS are able to enjoy a traditional holiday meal on Thanksgiving.
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Our name has changed since we began as the Jewish Social Service Bureau in 1928. But our mission to help people has remained the same for 90 years.
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These women were JFS foster parents in the 1940s. Today, our work with children and families continues through counseling, mentoring, crisis support, and ensuring basic needs are being met.