PJ Library of JEWISHcolorado received a one-year $25,000 grant to launch Great Connections, an initiative designed to foster sustainable relationships and friendships among Jewish families in Aurora and Highlands Ranch. Thanks to the grant, which is funded by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation in partnership with more than 20 allied organizations, PJ Library has hired three PJ Parent Connectors, who will help build peer-to-peer connections among families and connect them to local opportunities to engage in Jewish life and learning.

This grant was one of only 15 Engagement Grants for Implementing Partners awarded this year by PJ Library to communities across the United States and Canada.

In addition, JEWISHcolorado’s Joyce Zeff Israel Study Tour is among only three community programs to receive funding from RootOne, an ambitious new initiative that aims to help bring tens of thousands of Jewish teens from the US to Israel on immersive summer teen trips.

Our IST team will be using the $100,000 grant to create robust pre- and post-trip educational programs that will prepare our Colorado teens to engage with the realities of Israel today. The curricula will be designed to strengthen IST participants’ Jewish identities and connections to Israel as they launch into adulthood on college campuses and beyond.

RootOne is seeded by a generous gift from The Marcus Foundation and powered by The Jewish Education Project.