Westchester Jewish Community Services (WJCS) in White Plains, one of the largest nonsectarian, nonprofit human services agencies in Westchester County has become an official partner of A More Perfect Union: The Jewish Partnership for Democracy (AMPU), a nonprofit organization based in New York City that seeks to protect and strengthen American democracy by building a network of Jewish civic organizations, nonprofit agencies, and philanthropies. AMPU aims to mobilize these organizations to uphold democratic norms across partisan lines and religious affiliation.
“Voting is a responsibility we all share and WJCS is proud to partner with AMPU to help ensure more of our county’s residents are able to get out and vote,” said WJCS CEO Seth Diamond. “It’s essential in our democracy for everyone to have a voice and we urge all our county’s residents to vote this fall.”
WJCS’s 2024 action-based commitment to the work of “A More Perfect Union” is to provide voting resources and civic learning opportunities that will improve understanding and accessibility for Westchester County residents who are eligible to vote. In furtherance of this commitment, WJCS has hosted two successful voter registration and voter education events. First, at PrideWorks, the annual full-day conference for LGBTQIA+ youth held in Westchester, which was attended by thousands of students and allies from New York City, Westchester, Putnam, and Rockland. WJCS’ Center Lane sponsored a brightly decorated “Your Vote is Your Voice” table where attendees took advantage of the opportunity to register to vote, pre-register to vote, and update their voter registration. Second, National Voter Registration Day was celebrated with a special voter participation program at WJCS’ Shelanu/Supper Club Program. Sixteen young adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities, including autism, as well as their accompanying friends, family and aides, confirmed/updated their current registration status and enthusiastically engaged in a Q&A that allowed everyone to create a voting plan that will best enable them to vote in 2024.
“We believe in the strength, which comes from empowering diverse communities and recognize that ensuring voice, choice and civic participation are key to making our agency and our nation a place where all feel they belong,” said Stephan Spilkowitz, WJCS’s director of engagement and culture.
WJCS is proud to join the members of A More Perfect Union to continue shared work in the spirit of tikkun olam, Hebrew for “repairing the world,” and to strengthen Westchester communities by helping people of all ages and backgrounds live their best lives. WJCS’ communications and marketing department has been amplifying “Your Vote is Your Voice” messaging on the organization’s website, internal email and social media and will continue to do so through Nov, 5.
Westchester Jewish Community Services has been serving people facing major life obstacles in Westchester County since its founding in 1943.
Agency experts, using evidence-based practices, provide youth, mental health, trauma, disability, family, and senior services to about 20,000 people each year. It also offers privately funded programs for the Jewish community. WJCS is affiliated with Family Service Society of Yonkers, a human and social services agency founded in 1883 that provides programs and services related to housing for seniors and disabled individuals, literacy and academic support for students in underserved communities, advocacy, free legal counsel, and education for kinship families, and guardianship for incapacitated adults in danger of neglect, abuse, and/or financial exploitation.
