A Big Award for Camp Chi

It always feels great to be recognized when you work hard for something that really matters to you. That’s how we feel about receiving the Excellence in Russian-Speaking Jewish Engagement at the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Leaders Assembly, the biggest professional conference for Jewish camps. This award was presented by the Foundation for Jewish Camp and made possible by the generous support of the Genesis Philanthropy Group. Camp Chi was selected for this honor from nearly 200 Jewish overnight camps in North America!

Since the early 1980’s, Camp Chi has had a special connection with the Chicagoland Russian-speaking Jewish (RSJ) community. It started by hosting family weekends at Perlstein Retreat Center for recent immigrants from Russia. As these kids got older, they attended Camp Chi and now many of their children are second generation campers.

Then in 2013, Camp Chi was selected to participate in the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Hadracha Initiative to increase the number of children from RSJ families who attend overnight camp. This program has allowed us to hire more Russian-speaking counselors from the U.S. and Israel, provide special RSJ scholarships and much more, including hosting an awesome Russian Heritage Family Camp in September 2017.

We’ve been told that Camp Chi now has one of the largest (if not the largest) group of campers from RSJ families among all North American camps. We are proud of this distinction because it shows how important diversity of cultures and RSJ families are to our camp community.

Photo: Marina Yudborovsky, Genesis Philanthropy Group’s Director of Global Operations, presenting the award to Brad Finkel.