The OU announced recipients of challenge grants for seven projects, with the objective of developing innovative and replicable solutions to address day school affordability. The grants, part of a $150,000 initiative to confront the affordability issue, were announced on the concluding day of the Summit on the Affordability of Jewish Education arranged by the OU to stimulate discussion and planning on dealing with this critical issue.
The summit, arranged by the OU’s Institute for Public Affairs and held in Woodcliff Lake, NJ, brought together an invited group of 150 day school professionals, rabbis, and other community leaders affiliated with over 80 institutions from across the spectrum of Orthodoxy.
The seven grant recipients were: Project Education Tuition Affordability Campaign (Project Education Council, Brooklyn, NY); Yeshiva He’Atid (21st Century Judaic Studies Curricula Project, Bergenfield, NJ); Corporate Citizenship (Denver Academy of Torah, Denver, CO); Hillel Without Borders (The Samuel Scheck Hillel Community Day School, North Miami Beach, FL); Edollars (Yeshiva Schools of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA); The National Jewish Cooperative Day School Project (The Jewish Cooperative School, Hollywood, FL); and The Online Resource Room, Scranton Hebrew Day School, Scranton, PA.
Yehuda Neuberger, Chair of the OU’s Tuition Affordability Task Force, said, “We were heartened to see the depth of commitment and breadth of creativity being applied to the issue of educational affordability.”
In addition to the grants, the OU has made a commitment to support the Jewish Education for Generations (JEFG) campaign in Bergen County, NJ with a one-time gift. AccordingRabbi Judah Isaacs, OU Director of Community Engagement Department, which administers the grant program, “This award is in recognition of the pioneering effort made by JEFG to galvanize community support for all of the day schools in Bergen County.”
You can read all about the seven grant-winning proposals and more here.