Young Jewish Professionals Now Crowdsourcing Funds To Help Bubbies

Rachel Schapiro, (left) and Hinda Adle, (center) interview Rita Grossman, (right) at a JCS meal site on South Beach. Rachel, and Hinda, are part of a group of young professionals, called the Jewish Community Services Alliance, interviewing seniors. The group is hoping to raise $18,000 by September to receive a $165,000 grant from Florida's Department of Transportation.

Credit Peter Andrew Bosch / Miami Herald staff

Rita Grossman’s lifeline to the outside world is a white mini-bus with big, blue letters that announce: Jewish Community Services of South Florida...Senior Ride.

“I don’t know what I would do without it,” said Grossman, 88, of Miami Beach. She points to her cane propped in the corner of a South Beach community center: “If I wanted to walk anywhere with that, I’d have to start at 8 a.m. and just keep going.”

Like Grossman, there are hundreds of elderly in Miami Beach and elsewhere who depend on JCS’ door-to-door transportation to ferry them to meal sites, doctors’ appointments and grocery stores. But there aren’t enough buses and a couple of those already on the road need to be retired.

That’s why the JCS Alliance, a group of young professionals affiliated with the JCS, came up with the fundraising project, New Wheels for Bubbie. And they’re trying a new technique: crowdfunding, the very modern way of raising small amounts from a lot of people through the Internet. Think 21st century technology meets the very traditional needs of the World War II generation.

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