New Auditorium and Cultural Arts Center and new staff homes keep to schedule.
The construction of the new Auditorium and Cultural Arts Center and new staff homes at Yemin Orde Youth Village continues to advance during the pandemic and Israel’s lockdowns. Health and safety guidelines are strictly enforced with no one from the Village coming into proximity with building crew or personnel.
The Manny and Brigitta Davidson Auditorium and Cultural Center will provide a state-of-the-art cultural arts venue for the Village and serve to greatly enhance the communal living experience for the Village’s 450 at-risk youth. It will be used as a safe and comfortable space for events, celebrations and ceremonies, speaker programs, recitals and the enhancement of cultural arts programs. Completion date is set for November 2021.
The new staff homes will consist of two separate apartment-style buildings containing four separate units in each building. The Village’s Informal Educators who will live in these new homes, are role models for our kids, the unsung heroes willing to live their lives here: idealist educators, some who are immigrants themselves.
Many of these committed educators are living in trailers that were placed on the Village grounds after the Carmel fire of 2010. More than 10 years later, the trailers are deteriorating and lack standard safety infrastructure, such as safe rooms / bomb shelters and protection from chemical warfare.
The new staff homes will have modern safety measures as required by Israeli law. Completion date is scheduled for December 2021.
We are grateful to our generous donors
In 2018, Manny and Brigitta Davidson, philanthropists from the United Kingdom, pledged $4.5 million for the $5.5.million project to build an auditorium and cultural center, (photo, left) the largest capital project ever assumed at Yemin Orde. They challenged ImpactIsrael to raise the remaining $1 million.
The Salinsky family in Lynn, MA was the first to accept the challenge for the auditorium with a commitment of $50,000.
In 2019, The Glickman Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, committed $500,000 to build two new staff homes (photo, left) on the condition that Yemin Orde could raise an additional $1.5 million to build a total of eight homes.
Kathy and Michael Azeez, residents of Palm Beach Gardens, Fl, and longtime supporters of ImpactIsrael, committed $1.5 million which allowed completion of the auditorium as well as accelerate the construction of two new staff homes. Michael Azeez serves as a Board Member of ImpactIsrael, as well as Chair of its Marketing Committee. The Azeez family has also hosted Yemin Orde staff and graduates at their home throughout the years.
The Zalik Foundation Fund of Atlanta has provided $250,000 for a staff home. Harriet and George Blank of New Hope, PA provided $250,000 in honor of George’s term as Chair of the Board of ImpactIsrael .
For information about capital projects at Yemin Orde contact Karen@impact-israel.org