Agencies Finalize New Office Plans at Grass Campus

As crews continue to knock down walls, lay down flooring, and outfit spaces across the Alexander Grass Campus for Jewish Life, updated plans will now give two agencies in our community the space to grow in their own buildings on the campus.

McCormick House, located at the Northwest corner of the Grass Campus, is now slated to be the new home of the Jewish Community Foundation of Central PA. The Foundation, which originally planned to share office space in the Grass Center (administrative building), will have an exclusive place to conduct business for the first time.

“Our donors are going to really appreciate the new facility,” says Paulette Keifer, Executive Director of the Foundation. “They are going to see the Foundation as an entity that can be trusted and a resource to them that they can count on for the future.”

The Jewish Community Foundation helps to simplify charitable giving and maximize the impact of gifts that donors make toward the organizations they care about. With its own space, the Foundation will be able to provide a space for donors to have confidential conversations and accommodate a wide array of needs.

“McCormick House is perfect for us,” says Board Chair Mike Doctrow. “People can get in and out easily, it has separate parking, and handicap accessibility – the new space is absolutely gorgeous and it provides us the opportunity to acknowledge our base of volunteers and contributors through receptions and other events.”

Jewish Family Service, which had previously planned to settle in McCormick House, will move to the corner of 2nd and Graham Streets in Hughes Hall, a four-floor building. The expanded space will help JFS to meet the growing need for mental health and social services.

“JFS has doubled in size the past few years, and being at Hughes Hall will really help us meet the needs of the community,” says Steven Schauder, Executive Director of JFS. “We will be able to expand our mental health counseling program, adoption and foster care, our resettlement program, and to give a more permanent home to the Libby Urie Food Pantry.”

Steve says that the agency will have the space and resources to bring all of its staff members – approaching forty and growing – under one roof for the first time.

“It gives us a chance to bring everybody together and create a community within the agency,” he says. “We’re grateful to the Alexander Grass Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Greater Harrisburg, and all of the community donors for being such wonderful partners and allowing for the opportunity to have such an incredible facility.”

JFS Board Chair Frank Fleishman says that while the new facilities will be particularly helpful for the growth of Jewish Family Service, having all of the community’s agencies on a single campus will be a benefit to each of the organizations.

“It’s important to JFS to be working with the community, and it will be helpful for all the agencies to be under one umbrella, working together and having uniformity in structure,” Frank says. “Just having a place like the size and stature of Grass Campus will be helpful down the road – employees are going to want to work for an agency on a campus like Grass Campus.”

To learn more about the plans for the Alexander Grass Campus for Jewish Life, visit www.grasscampus.org.