The Westfield Fun Club is a charity devoted to helping refugee families in need, and is directed and was founded by Jenny Tenenbaum and Alissa Berger. The organization works under the Temple Emanu-El of Westfield as well as the United Fund of Westfield.
The organization began in 2016 when Alissa’s son Dylan was having his bar mitzvah, and a task for him was to do a good deed, called a mitzvah project. At the time, the Syrian Refugee Crisis was prominent. They became interested, and the temple and nearby churches were adopting displaced families to help them out by giving them things to settle down. Alissa and Jenny decided to become involved and adopt a family. They provided for their needs then met many new families and decided to start a homework club for the children, as they didn’t know English. The temple allowed them to use the school in the temple to teach the children and teach ESL and other extra-curricular.
The organization is based in Westfield and run by the temple, and funded by it as well (and the fund), as it is not a non-profit and relies on these funds. Other profits stem from social-media, like Facebook. When they need donations, especially in these tough times, they reach out to the community, and receive donations of food and money.
The club used to work by meeting on Saturday mornings from 10-12 am, and the 20-or-so refugee families were gifted goody bags. However, because of the pandemic, everything has been tough to navigate. There is now a huge issue of food and security – meaning the refugees are lacking food and are emotionally unstable. The refugee families had stopped working, and needed food and basic needs. The Westfield Fun Club would give their families weekly food baskets, but eventually the number grew to 125 families with about 5 people per family. The fun club is also offering homework buddies over Zoom, teaching extra-curricular activities, and getting the families’ needs food stamps don’t cover. Mainly, the club is learning on the go with the refugees, and it doesn’t have a set structure.
The organization is made up of 50-75 passionate volunteers who are wholly devoted to helping the refugees. They are diverse and eager people, gathered by Facebook posts and emails. 50 high school students acted as homework buddies, on call every night, and volunteers constantly helped with deliveries and furniture moving. The initiative of the volunteers is very inspiring and emotional. The volunteers are very diverse and come from all sorts of backgrounds. They are of any age, any religion, and any race. These volunteers also are capable of numerous things, so whenever someone requests some sort of help, there is someone to match up with them and build a bond with them. The club does this by finding the strengths of each volunteer, then waiting for a request by phone. The volunteers are entirely willing.
The Westfield Fun Club also offers emotional support over phone, as the refugees are suffering for PTSD and war injuries (they were removed from their country because of political conflicts like wars, unlike immigrants who immigrated to America by choice and hopes of “the American dream”), and pressure. They rely on the club for support, as they know nothing of America’s norms and language, and are pressured to support their children for them to succeed. The goal of the organization is to inspire other organizations to do the same (they have inspired the Jersey City Fun Club), and help the families assimilate.
However, they are only helping the families get settled, and not make the families lost their heritage. They want the refugees to take charge of their lives. They also want to show even if the refugees’ position in the community has been lowered, they are still proud and grateful. Likewise, they want the best for troubled families.
I think the Westfield Fun Club is a truly inspiring association/organization. It is helping the refugee families, and telling us that we’re all human no matter what situation we’re in.