Meet Rachel.^* Rachel’s 75th birthday present to herself was a gift to her community. In celebration of this milestone, she decided to endow her annual Lion of Judah gift through a bequest in her will. Her desire to support the Bay Area Jewish community is rooted in the experience she had 30 years ago when she and her husband moved to the Peninsula. “When I moved, I was amazed that there wasn’t a home for the aged, a Jewish community center, or a nursery school. In the Midwest, where I grew up, these institutions were available and everybody used them.”

Like many before her, Rachel turned to the Federation to find the resources that did exist and to help finance the services that were not yet in place. Today, she sees a vibrant Jewish world around her, including Jewish schools and the planned Taube-Koret Campus for Jewish Life, which will include a JCC, senior living facilities, and the Federation’s South Peninsula headquarters.

As she delights in the community’s vitality, Rachel recognizes the ongoing need for a centralized Jewish funding source to ensure that the institutions and services she’s helped cultivate are able to grow and change. “Creating a Lion of Judah Endowment means that I, with the support of my husband, am committing to the future,” she says.

^* Please note that names have been altered to protect the privacy of the donors.