Jewish Group Gets Grant for New Office

Jewish Family Service of Orange County recently received a $7,500 county grant to help pay for the opening of a branch office in Costa Mesa that will offer counseling services and programs for older adults.

Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder presented the Community Social Program Grant to the organization.

Mel Roth, executive director of Jewish Family Service of Orange County, said that the grant money will be used to open the branch office as well as to start an education program designed to boost teen-agers’ self-esteem.

The program will be available to youth groups, clubs or classes of teen-agers between the ages of 15 and 18, Roth said.

He said the organization decided to open the branch office to serve people who live in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley, Newport Beach, Irvine and Westminster.

“The new location will make it much easier for residents of west Orange County to access the important counseling and social services provided by Jewish Family Service,” Wieder said in a prepared statement.

Roth said that the nonprofit organization has a main office in Orange and a branch office in Laguna Hills but that those facilities are too distant for people who live in west Orange County.

“Whether for counseling services or for a crisis situation, they could not come this far (to the Orange office), and we felt that by being in that part of the county, we’d be more geographically accessible to residents of those cities,” Roth said.

He said the Costa Mesa branch, at 250 E. Baker St., is scheduled to open Sept. 1 and is on the Jewish Federation campus.

The Community Foundation of the Jewish Federation of Orange County also contributed money to start the branch office, which will cost a total of $7,170 to open, Roth said.

Among the services that will be offered are information and referral services for older adults who may need crisis intervention or help in solving financial problems.

Roth said that the services are open to anyone who wishes to use them and that fees are based on income and family size.

“We serve people of all backgrounds, and our services are open to anybody of all races, religions and ages,” he said.

The organization now serves more than 5,000 people a year, Roth said. Growth of 15% to 20% is expected with opening of the Costa Mesa office.

The organization is seeking volunteers to help refugees learn about the culture here, to visit the isolated and frail elderly, to assist special-needs clients with problem-solving and to visit people in retirement homes.