Women's Endowment celebration evening in May highlights the Fund's invaluable contributions
“If you want to lift up humanity, empower women. It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings.” – Melinda Gates
This past May, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba hosted the Women’s Endowment Fund (WEF) Celebration evening at Congregation Shaarey Zedek. Nearly 120 philanthropists gathered to celebrate the impact of WEF and to honour one of our community’s leaders: Marjorie Blankstein.
Three recent WEF grant recipients—Jewish Child and Family Service (JCFS), Gowns for Grads, and the Alzheimer’s Society of Manitoba—shared stories of what the grants have accomplished. Each spoke to how WEF grants have made a meaningful difference in the lives of those they serve.
Al Benarroch, Executive Director of JCFS, described the most recent grant, which supported A New Home: Stories of Jewish Newcomer Women to Winnipeg. The project captures the settlement journeys of women new to the community.
“We were able to contract a community worker to meet one-on-one with these Jewish women, who had arrived from places like Greece, Argentina, and Israel,” said Benarroch. “These women have powerful stories: stories of courage, of faith, of starting over, and of building a new life from the ground up.”
Analyn Baker, representing Gowns for Grads, spoke about WEF’s support, which allows the program to maintain inventory in dress sizes 18–30.
“We often get calls and emails inquiring if we have these sizes because teachers do not want to bring students to appointments to have them leave disappointed,” she explained. “Over the last five seasons, an average of 38% of students attending Gowns for Grads required dresses in these sizes. But donations in this range remain limited. This is where WEF had the most significant impact.”
Erin Crawford, representing the Alzheimer’s Society of Manitoba, shared the impact of the Minds in Motion and Touch Quilt Project programs. The Touch Quilt Project features handmade quilts, crafted from fabrics of varied textures, providing comforting sensory stimulation for people living with dementia. Volunteers, primarily women, from churches, schools, senior centres, and quilting groups contribute their time and care to craft the quilts. Crawford presented one of these quilts as a gift to Marjorie at the celebration.
The stories were profound. As the evening concluded, it reiterated that WEF is not merely a collection of contributions. WEF is a powerful movement—women supporting women, building a stronger and more compassionate future.
Marjorie Blankstein, joined by family and friends, was celebrated for her decades of leadership. She served on the Foundation’s Board and Executive in the 1980s and is now a JFM Governor. She shaped strategic planning in 2006 and 2011, supports 11 Jewish organizations through organizational endowment funds, and maintains her own named funds supporting camperships, Judaic programming, and urgent community needs through the Community Impact Fund.
Her daughter, Carol McCarton, also an endowment fundholder at the JFM, reflected on WEF’s enduring impact.
“The Women’s Endowment Fund evening last year left us with the message that work is yet to be done,” she said. “And that work does not stop with us. It cannot stop with us. The generation before mine laid the framework, and we must ensure the torch is passed to those who will carry it further.”
Thank you to all who joined in May to honour Marjorie and to celebrate the enduring strength of community philanthropy.