By Joel Magalnick, JTNews Correspondent
When Tipper Gore gives a slide show, she likes to cover her entire life as a jumping-off point for telling her stories. She also likes a large audience. In the case of her recent Seattle visit, that audience was 850 well-dressed members of the Seattle community who came to hear her speak about the issues of homelessness and mental illness, topics with which she is very familiar.
The reason for her visit, in keeping with these issues, was to benefit Jewish Family Service, which held its most successful fundraising event in its history.
“It was a huge success in every aspect,” said Judy Neuman, a longtime JFS board member and key planner of the event. “I don’t think we could have crammed one more table of 10 in the room.”
“I was thrilled with the way it went,” added co-planner Laurie Stusser-McNeil, “the way were able to fill and have such a good feeling in the room.”
Those good feelings could be attributed to Gore — who spoke about her own battle with clinical depression, as well as her mother’s mental illness — and JFS client Elisa Jacobs, whose brief speech didn’t leave a dry eye in house. David Arfin, who has a mental disability and lives in a JFS-supported independent living facility, was featured in a video with Jacobs explaining the faces behind the agency. Arfin attended the luncheon with his family, all of whom flew in from California for the event.
According to Neuman, JFS raised approximately $330,000, an increase of over $120,000 from past auction fundraisers the agency has held. The event introduced JFS to members of the overall community who were not familiar with its services, Stusser-McNeil noted. Invitations were entirely word-of-mouth, and attendees were not asked to pay for their meals. In addition, the cost of the event was underwritten by corporate and individual sponsors, so all of the money raised will go directly toward serving the agency’s clients.
This increase in donations comes at an especially crucial time in the agency’s 110-year history.
“The last 18 months have been the worst difficulties I’ve experienced,” said Executive Director Ken Weinberg, during his speech at the lunch. Weinberg, who has been with the agency for more than 20 years, said that the number of people needing food has risen 35 percent during this rough period.
People in need of any kind of assistance turn to Jewish Family Service when they need help. JFS operates a food bank, provides counseling services, gives emergency loans to people in crisis, oversees independent living for people with disabilities, and helps survivors of domestic violence out of their situations, enabling them to start over, among other services.
All of these services cost money, and because of the agency’s mission to not turn away anyone in need, those seeking help cannot always pay it. The state, which has historically given a lot of funding to JFS, is swinging the budget ax in the direction of social services because of its own monetary woes.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle also budgets a large chunk of its unrestricted allocations to JFS, but it isn’t enough to offset lost government money or to cover all of JFS’ costs. Investments to help cover endowment funds have also gone downhill in the past three years, which has only added to the agency’s woes.
As a result, JFS has had to tighten its belt, including cutting back some of its programs and dipping into its reserves. The extra money raised from this event can go toward helping inject a cushion back into the agency, though JFS Assistant Executive Director Claudia Berman said the agency won’t know what the money will be used for until the board approves next year’s budget later in the summer.
Until then, there are also still a lot of unknowns.
“We don’t know how our year-end finances stand yet,” Berman said, “and we don’t know what the allocation from Federation is, we don’t know the impact of government cuts.”
In an interview after the event, Gore said she was amazed how some of the attendees thanked her for helping them with their own depression or mental illness. She used her position as “second lady” — a name she said she couldn’t stand the entire eight years her husband was Vice President — to bring the issue into the public eye.
Gore told the audience that she herself had been diagnosed with clinical depression, and drugs and counseling have since helped her regain her composure.
Now that her she and her husband are out of the political spotlight, Tipper has had more time to devote to the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, of which she is honorary chair. “Our goal is to eradicate the stigma and educate people about these health care issues,” she said.
Gore doesn’t see herself as a celebrity, but she has the name recognition to lend to this cause, and she uses it. She said that with a poor economy and anxiety about homeland security, the number of people suffering from mental illness is growing, and communities across the country are not prepared.
“If [the public] wants to see more funding for community groups, and taking care of homeless people,” Gore said, “they should let their elected officials know.”
Giving her life story appears to be an effective way of getting the message across. A child of divorced parents — a rarity in the 1950s — she grew up living with her mother and grandmother. Her mother, Gore said, was mentally ill but the issue was largely ignored outside of the home. Treatment was unsophisticated, and people were afraid to talk about it.
Yet it made Gore more sympathetic to the homeless — many of whom may be mentally ill and are unable to support themselves — as she raised her own children.
So bringing her story to the JFS luncheon fit right in to the agency’s desire to educate the public on its mission.
“We settled on Tipper Gore because we felt it was absolutely the right choice,” said Neuman.
Berman and Stusser-McNeil both agreed. “She’s certainly so generous with herself,” Stusser Mc-Neil said. “She was very present and very approachable.”
Organizers also said they couldn’t be happier with the way the day turned out.
“I’m not surprised by the generosity in the community, but it’s always nice to be reminded of it,” Stusser-McNeil said.