This application timeline coincides with JCF’s Community Grants Program timeline.
The Message of Hope Fund was created in 1995 from proceeds from an exhibit about Anne Frank. The exhibit was a tremendous success, drawing 65,000 visitors from across Arizona. This was a momentous occasion that not only brought communities together to learn, volunteer and contribute to tolerance education, but it raised enough funds to pay back the agencies that supported the exhibit, pay for the exhibit itself, and start the Message of Hope Fund. On its 18th anniversary, the Message of Hope Fund was turned into an endowment that provides funding for tolerance programs in perpetuity.
Since its inception, the Message of Hope Fund has supported many worthwhile programs, including:
- Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History Museum for an educational outreach program that brings students to the Center and the Museum.
- Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona’s Holocaust Survivors Program, which published a book entitled “To Tell Our Stories: Holocaust Survivors of Southern Arizona” in 2015.
- Tucson Unified School District to train teachers about the Holocaust.
- Exchange program with Polish youth to experience life as Jews in America.