UJA’s Emergency Grants in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

Since the pandemic began, UJA has provided emergency grants to help our partner agencies deal with the growing needs of the Jewish vulnerable. This represents just the first phase of our efforts to strengthen the ability of our social service agencies to cope with surging requests for help, which is a core priority of our Emergency Campaign for Community Resilience.

UJA’s emergency grants in recent months include:

• $50,000 to Jewish Immigrant Aid Services (JIAS Toronto) to meet increased food and rental assistance needs;
• $50,000 to Jewish Addiction Community Services (JACS Toronto) to support their ability to meet increased call volumes and online group sessions;
• $30,000 to Circle of Care to meet the increased demand for Kosher Meals on Wheels;
• $50,000 to Kayla’s Children Centre (KCC) to pay for personal support workers to assist their most vulnerable students with disabilities who are currently at home because of the need for physical distancing;
• $100,000 to Reena to pay for meal preparation to be shifted to a central location and delivered on an individual basis to developmentally disabled clients living in Reena’s group homes.
• $115,000 to Kehilla Residential Programme to support sustainable rent subsidies for our community’s most vulnerable members;
• $100,000 to Jewish Family & Child (JF&CS) to strengthen its dedicated support for Holocaust survivors;
• $130,000 to Bernard Betel Centre to provide Kosher Meals on Wheels to at-risk seniors in our community;
• $50,000 to Jewish Free Loan Toronto to create an online application portal for its new emergency loan program for community members impacted by the pandemic;
• $50,000 to JVS to help with Virtual Counselling to Manage Remote-Learning for Children with Learning Challenges program; and
• $5,000 to Chai Tikvah to provide computers to their clients to help reduce social isolation