The first large room with a big meeting desk had toys strewn about, as did the small hallway, leftover from the big holiday giveaway which served over 200 families. These rooms led to the food pantry where three volunteers smiled at us as they were stuffing sacks full of food. Goldstein commented on how the shelves were getting sparse due to the recent high demand. The other rooms housed a number of counselors and a few administrators.

In North America, close to 200 Jewish Family and Children’s Agencies provide a similar range of services. Although these organizations are autonomous, many have long and interesting histories similar to the location in St. Louis, and they are bound by a Jewish tradition of “Tikkun Olam”—repairing the world.

A book on Jewish Philanthropy written at the beginning of the 1900s talks about the broad extent of this giving tradition at the time when many of the Jewish Family Service agencies were beginning, noting that Jewish law made charity an obligation. It was “the duty of the more fortunate to take care of the less fortunate.” Although the agencies currently are “not here to advocate religion, but to respond to needs,” according to Lou Albert, Executive Director of the St. Louis Jewish and Children’s Family Service, this dedication to service has provided a tradition of good deeds that spans centuries in many cities throughout the U.S.

Stories from local news outlets around the country highlight this dedication to service. In Orlando, a woman tells her story of receiving help via Jewish Family after a divorce; in Pennsylvania, a news article describes how the Jewish Family Service helps elders through in-home assistance and meals on wheels; and and in California, an in-school counseling program provides the school with a licensed therapist to help with issues of peer pressure, bullying, poor social skills, violence and academic performance. In St. Louis, the local agency provides expert resources to families dealing with serious physical and emotional difficulties, professional therapy, assistance with eldercare and eldercare planning, a food pantry, child abuse prevention services, and much more.

In fact, over the summer, they started a garden project called Kehillah (which means community in Hebrew) where children between the ages of 5 and 14 can learn about “tikkun olam.” The food from the garden is used at their food pantry.

Although a lot has changed since the Jewish Family and Children’s Service in St. Louis started providing assistance to the Chicago Fire survivors over a hundred years ago, the current state of affairs for these agencies is still similar. In St. Louis and Las Vegas, this means providing assistance with housing and jobs, two of the main things that were necessities in the post-fire relocation of 1871.

As Albert said, “Some of our earliest services were geared toward the needs of families—financial, jobs, housing. Over the years we began to expand the scope of what we were addressing, and we added in mental health services – a whole variety of things… We do some things that are very similar to what we would have done in 1871—operate a food pantry, provide financial assistance. But now we have a very large child abuse prevention program, and we also have a very large counseling program, which you probably wouldn’t have seen in 1871.”