Your gifts to the Jewish Hartford Rapid Relief and Recovery Fund are allowing us to meet our community's needs in unprecedented times. Thank you. We could not show up for our community in this way without you.

You may have heard quite a bit about the Fund's rapid relief work to meet individual needs through food distribution, financial assistance and personal referrals. It has helped hundreds of families - first for Passover and for weeks thereafter. Additional funds have been set aside for this need moving forward.

The Fund, in partnership with our agencies and synagogues, has also developed a set of guidelines to address our recovery efforts. We started with a few certainties in these uncertain times:

• This recovery will last for an extended period, with ripple effects we don't yet understand.
• Regular communication between all involved - donors, agencies, synagogues, professionals and lay leaders - is essential, because circumstances change quickly.
• We cannot rush and react impulsively, and yet we must be nimble, thoughtful and responsive.
• We will get through this, together.

Our agencies and synagogues have worked hard to envision different scenarios and project the potential impact of COVID-19 and our shelter-in-place experience on their services and communities. In turn, the Fund committees have worked hard to develop grant guidelines that meet needs equitably while directly addressing the issues at hand. The complete guidelines are available here.

The Directors of the Jewish Federation and Trustees of the Jewish Community Foundation have approved these guidelines and the Fund's Grants Committee will review agency requests this summer; synagogue grants will be made after the high holidays when synagogues have a better sense of their needs, although urgent needs can be addressed before then.

It has not been an easy process. Complexities and uncertainties abound. We are moving forward based on the best information available, and we feel confident that we are collaboratively engaging to do what's right and impactful to serve the diverse and multiple needs of our Jewish community.

Our community will be forever changed from this experience, and yet we know we will adapt - as we always have - with your support. We promise to steward your donations with the utmost care, for the benefit of those who need it most.

We will continue to update you on newly identified needs and grants decisions. Thank you for providing hope, help and healing so our community can emerge even stronger from this crisis.

In partnership,