Priscilla R. Stern Literacy Fund

Working in Memory of Priscilla R. Stern

The Stern family and their friends recently joined together to establish the Priscilla R. Stern Literacy Fund at AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps. This fund will allow one AVODAH Corps member each year to work in the field of literacy for the next 10 years.

Elsie Stern, Priscilla’s daughter, wrote that the fund was established because, “we can only imagine how much our mother would have loved to talk with an AVODAH Corps member — a young woman, overflowing with enthusiasm about her work in teaching people to read, angry and sad that such work is necessary, and passionate about working for comprehensive system reform. For our mother, talking was a way to connect, poetry a way to express her wonder at the beauty of the world, and books a way to enter into limitless worlds of imagination and ideas. She worked at the school and public libraries; she brought books to shut-ins and tutored adults in reading.”

This year, the Fund is supporting Corps member Diana Levy, who works at the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice (SLJ) in Brooklyn, New York. SLJ is a public college preparatory school with a focus on law. Students take classes in legal studies and learn by doing. Diana, who is from Hyattsville, Maryland and recently graduated from Northwestern University, coordinates the After School Learning Academy, developing after school programs and summer internships for SLJ students and helping them apply to college.

AVODAH is honored that the Stern family and their friends have selected this unique way to cherish Priscilla Stern’s memory.

For more information on naming opportunities at AVODAH, please contact Ilanit Gerblich Kalir at ilanit( put the “at” symbol here )avodah.net or 212-545-7759.