Gelfand Children's Foundation: A promise made 30 years ago still helping Dist. 34 families

It started with paying for sneakers. It's progressed to rental assistance and crisis aid.

As the need for financial support to families within Glenview School District 34 has increased, so has the response by the Debra Gelfand Children's Foundation.

What started 30 years ago with a vow to one District 34 mother from another, a charitable committee run by volunteers and the school district transitioned in May 2020 to a full-fledged 501(c) (3) organization to boost its fundraising power.

“It's really focused on families of District 34 children who are in need. The need has gotten a little bit wider in the last year and a half, both in terms of the breadth of children who are in need as well as the depth of what is needed,” said Vice President Zach Gelfand, who was 2 when 37-year-old mother-of-six Debra Gelfand died of cancer on the Fourth of July, 1990.

“When we started 30 years ago it really started with just getting shoes on kids' feet. It's really grown over time, this particular year for rental assistance to families who are being evicted,” said Zach Gelfand, who got his start at Westbrook School and graduated from Glenbrook North in 2006.

The 501(c) (3) status allows the Debra Gelfand Children's Foundation greater flexibility in fundraising and a better ability to market itself than when directly tied in to District 34. Corporations also are more likely to donate to a 501(c) (3) nonprofit, because they can write off donations on their taxes.

“Since they converted to a foundation, we've been able to reach more people both from a fundraising standpoint and also a support standpoint,” said District 34 support request coordinator Karen Hitzeman.

She said that while the Gelfand Children's Foundation assists district students who are economically disadvantaged, “it's really a crisis fund” that will help families in the event of medical emergencies, fires, floods, and the like.

“It's an amazing group. The board of the foundation has been so generous with the families in helping during the pandemic. They've really rallied and been able to provide this support. I don't know what would have happened to some of these families,” Hitzeman said.

Over the 2020-21 school year, Zach Gelfand said the foundation distributed about $90,000 to Glenview School District 34 families, and over time it has raised “in the mid-six figures.”

He said the foundation provided about $45,000 in rental assistance and another $20,000 in clothing and shoes, working with Kohl's.

Gelfand said incorporation as a 501(c) (3) “increased our ability to fundraise by fourfold or even fivefold. And that couldn't have come at a better time. A worse time, but a better time.”

The foundation raises money through its Giving Tree Project, which took in about $10,000 from August through September, and by direct donation.

Spearheaded by Hitzeman, the foundation also offers the Gelfand Necessities Closet housed at Glenview United Methodist Church, 727 Harlem Ave. A partnership among multiple Northfield Township organizations, Gelfand said, it offers things like school supplies, hygiene products, diapers and cleaning goods.

People in need are best served by contacting a school social worker; by District 34 school, they are listed on the foundation website, debragelfand.org, under the “Need help?” tab.

“The mission is to keep kids able to focus on school as much as possible, when there are so many things that can be distracting from that goal,” Gelfand said.

There might not be a mission without two women: Debra Gelfand and her best friend, Barbara Silver, the president of the foundation.

They didn't have long to commiserate on Debra's illness, a little under five months between her diagnosis in March 1990 until her death.

“Before she passed away, one thing she asked is she wanted to be remembered. I made a promise,” Silver said.

“I didn't know I'd do it. I made the promise, and then I had to figure it out. And I did.”

Silver also was a District 34 mother and, one day, as Zach Gelfand tells it, she was dropping off her children and saw a student with holes in his shoes.

“And a light went off,” he said.

A massive yard sale and silent auction followed. In earnest the Debra Gelfand Children's Foundation had begun.

“It's a tribute to her, her legacy and what she believed in,” Silver said. “And I'm just the instrument who made it happen. She's the star.”