WJC Endowment Campaign Update

Dear Friends, 

We hope that this note finds you and your families healthy and well. The Coronavirus has had a profound effect on our lives and we pray that your family remains safe during this difficult and unsettling time.

As you know from prior communications, while WJC is closed, our clergy, executive staff, and lay leadership have been working tirelessly to create meaningful opportunities for community, learning, and prayer through the use of technology and a little ingenuity.

You also know that we are in the midst of an Endowment Campaign, the primary purpose of which is to provide WJC with resources to continue to innovate and grow and to protect us against dramatic unforeseen circumstances. The initial phase of the campaign with lay leadership was very successful and we had just begun to roll out the campaign to the WJC community at large when recent events necessitated that we reconsider our short-term goals and strategy. While we continue to believe that a strong endowment is vital to secure WJC’s future and remain committed to achieving our campaign goal, we recognize that, as important as the endowment may be, it is not where our energies should be devoted during this unprecedented emergency. Nothing should distract us from doing all we can to meet the immediate practical and spiritual needs of our community during this time of crisis.

We thank those who have already contributed to the endowment campaign. Your generosity has resulted in total pledges of approximately $1.3 million thus far. We look forward to continuing our meetings with families to discuss the campaign as soon as things stabilize and to achieving our campaign goal. We are grateful for the extraordinary efforts of our clergy, executive staff, and lay leadership during this incredibly challenging time and are confident that WJC will emerge an even stronger community as a result of all our efforts. Then, it will be our great pleasure to resume the important work of building our endowment. If you want to speak with us about your family’s commitment to the endowment notwithstanding our “pause,” please reach out to Rabbi Segelman or one of the campaign co-chairs and we would be happy to speak with you via telephone.

We wish you good health and the strength to endure the challenge before us. Please let us know if there is anything that we can do to further support you.

Sincerely,
Ian Winters and Larry Iason – Endowment Co-Chairs
Seth Schafler, President