Stampfer Award goes to Holzmans May 31
By Paul Haist article created on:Renee and Irwin Holzman have lived in the same house for decades. Irwin still drives the Chevrolet Impala station wagon he bought in 1966. He says it runs just fine with more than 400,000 miles on it.
The Holzmans are a couple who have achieved an enviable level of security in their life together, but they choose to live relatively modestly.
What they do instead is help others. It is something they have done for many years.
In recognition of their role as philanthropic leaders here, the Holzmans are to be presented the 2007 Rabbi Joshua Stampfer Community Enrichment Award at a May 31 banquet at the Benson Hotel.
The Holzmans launched their philanthropic career in 1990 when they created the Holzman Foundation, Inc.
By that time, the company Irwin established in 1958, The Reliable Credit Association, had prospered for many years and provided the couple the wherewithal to share.
"We had reached a point by that time where we pretty much felt our lifestyle was established," said Renee Holzman. "We weren't moving to a bigger house. Our sons were kind of grown."
Just prior to creating the foundation, Gov. Robert Straub named Renee to the Oregon Council for the Humanities, which she would chair.
The council, the Oregon affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, afforded Renee the opportunity to read and study grant proposals, to learn the fundamentals of grant-making.
Citing that experience she said, "We had the resources. We decided as a family we would like to have a foundation."
And it is a family affair. The whole family takes part in the decision-making process, although, as foundation president, Renee does most of the research and makes recommendations to the family.
"We decided to meet once a year at Thanksgiving to discuss what we wanted to do," said Renee.
In its first year, the Holzman Foundation allocated about $11,000 to four beneficiary organizations, including what is now known as Cedar Sinai Park, Portland's Jewish senior living campus that includes the Robison Jewish Health Center and Rose Schnitzer Manor.
"Next year we allocated $20,000 or $21,000," said Renee.
By this time, the community had begun to take notice.
"As we grew and people learned about us, we started receiving proposals," said Renee. Initially, funding options were generated strictly inside the foundation.
Irwin brings his business acumen to bear and functions as the foundation bookkeeper.
The couple's three sons join their parents in weighing their mother's recommendations each year, according to Renee.
The family circle is central to the Holzman Foundation's philanthropic activities. Husband and wife point to tradition on both sides of the family as the foundation for this.
"Our parents are what started us," said Irwin.
"For both of us, the models were our parents," said Renee.
Irwin said that his mother was a longtime community activist here. His father, a physician, "did his share too," he said.
"My father was very involved," said Renee, who remembers the blue and white Jewish National Fund tzedakah box as a fixture of her childhood.
Her grandparents came from Europe and had left family behind.
"No matter how little they had," she said of her grandparents, "they always sent money to their families in Europe."
Needy relatives in Europe may be a thing of the past for the Holzmans, but they remain aware of need here and around the world and they share their good fortune accordingly.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland benefits each year from the Holzman Foundation. In that way, the Holzman's maintain their ties not only to the Jewish community here that benefits from the federation campaign, but also to Jews in need around the world.
Apart from the federation, the Holzman's reach out to a wide spectrum of people in need.
"Some people are born lucky," said Renee. "But there is a whole world out there we don't know about."
Referring to recent remarks here by the poet Maya Angelou about the ability each of us has to be "a rainbow in somebody's cloud," Renee added, "We have the opportunity to do that."
She and her family have taken the opportunity to reach out especially to communities of people who suffer from the inequities that continue to plague our society.
For example, when the Holzman's learned a few years ago of the rising incidence of child abuse in families in which methamphetamine addiction was an issue, they wanted to help.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski put Renee in touch with the Department of Human Services where she was directed to the state's foster-care system and the Portland Children's Relief Nursery. The purpose was to gauge what services existed to serve those in need and to identify as yet unmet needs.
That led to Holzman Foundation support for the PCRN, a nonprofit organization providing early intervention and treatment to high-risk children and families in the St. Johns community of North Portland.
But the foundation's work didn't stop there. Renee's research of parenting issues eventually led her to Jewish Family and Child Service Executive Director Marvin Kuperstein to learn about family issues faced by his agency.
That led to the Holzman Foundation's funding of Side By Side, a parent coaching program just concluding its first year.
"Undoubtedly, the Holzman's contribution enabled us to start this program," said Kuperstein, who described the program as a unique, new rapid-response system for families in trouble.
Other local beneficiaries of Holzman Foundation philanthropy include Human Solutions, a Gresham-area non-profit that helps families gain self-sufficiency by providing affordable housing, skill development and family support services.
Renee said this organization operates what she called a community transitional school for children living in shelters and without a connection to a regular school. They provide the children with clothing and hot meals.
"I have heard of families with just enough clothing for one child to go to school," said Renee.
With the help of individuals and organizations such as the Holzman Foundation, Human Solutions helps families living on the edge send all their children to school.
Many other similar groups also benefit from the Holzman Foundation's focus on family needs and even direct service by Renee. They include, for example, the Big Brother and Big Sister programs here, the Boys and Girls Aid Society of Oregon, Court-Appointed Special Advocates for Children (CASA), New Avenues for Youth—a program that helps street children get off the streets, the Friends of the Children program that provides professional mentors to high-risk children for up to 12 years, Insights—a program for teenage parents, David's Harp—a community clubhouse model program for adults with mental illness, and Folk Time—an organization that helps people facing the challenges of mental illness regain their sense of community and self-determination.
Other Holzman family beneficiaries include Cancer Care Resource, which helps people newly diagnosed with cancer adapt to the new and challenging realities of their life, the Dougy Center for Grieving Children and Families, and the Rafael House for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. Renee currently serves as a grief facilitator at the Dougy Center and is a former crisis counselor at Rafael House.
"It's not enough just to write the check," said Renee. "You have to offer your personal love and set an example."
That belief is deeply embedded in her character, according to her son Lee.
He believes it was his maternal grandfather, Renee's father, who shared with her the saying, "I am not going to pass this way again; I shall pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
This proverbial saying, generally attributed to Edward Courteny, the 13th-century Earl of Devon, appears on the Holzman Foundation letterhead. Lee said the values implicit in the observation have been passed from generation to generation, dor l'dor, in his family.
"My mother doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the walk all year long," said Lee.
The Holzman Foundation has a clear focus on helping people in need to live better. The end of life also gets the family's attention.
Renee serves on the advisory board of Compassion and Choices, a national group with a chapter in Oregon that works to improve care and expand choice at the end of life, including the aggressive pursuit of legal reform to promote pain care, advance directives and physician assistance in dying.
Still other groups benefit from Holzman attention. They include the Melton Mini-School Program, and the Mittleman Jewish Community Center Shabbat dinner program, as well as various cultural programs in the arts and other activities in the area of medicine.
Speaking in her role as president of the Holzman Foundation, Inc., Renee summarized what she and her family strive for.
"When there is an issue we care about, we pursue it. We educate ourselves and we find a way to make a difference," she said.
http://www.jewishreview.org/node/8548
No comments:
Post a Comment