Ruth & Norman Rales Jewish Family Services (Rales JFS) is a pillar in the Jewish community. From its food pantry to behavioral health programs, the nonprofit organization’s offerings are in play every day to help locals in need.
And for the past 33 years, Beth Levine has been at the helm of it.
Until this past May, that is, when Levine officially retired from her role as chief operating officer, a position she’s held since 2015.
In her honor, Rales JFS has created the Beth Levine Legacy Fund, which will help support the needs of the agency and continue the mission that Levine has successfully led.
“Knowing her history and how she started part time and has worked tirelessly and so diligently through the years and became chief operating officer as a female, to me, is so inspiring,” said Nicole Kornblum, director of marketing and communications at Rales JFS. ”I know that everyone who works with her and has worked under her truly appreciates Beth and everything that she does. Her legacy is phenomenal, and it’s really great that they have this fund. She’ll really be missed.”
We spoke with Levine, who lives in Boynton Beach, prior to her official retirement to learn more about her experience with Rales JFS and her future plans. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You have been with Rales JFS since 1992. How did you initially get involved?
A: I had clothing stores and we closed them and I was looking for a job. At that time, everything was posted in the newspapers and it was for a part-time finance job. I figured, I did the finances for our business, I could handle that. After I applied, I found out it really wasn’t finance, it was developing a financial assistance program at the agency that they never had before. So for the first year, I was part time and I created an application that, to this day, we still use. I created the policies and procedures for when someone wants to request financial assistance, what’s included, the documents that we’ll need, and then I developed a chart that showed at what level does someone qualify to receive financial assistance, and then we set parameters of how much someone could receive on an annual basis, so on and so forth.
From there, the position grew. I did HR, I did the front office, I managed volunteers, I started the food pantry in 1997, and I developed the policies and procedures for that, and that grew quickly. Every couple years, my responsibilities changed and increased. I was promoted to chief operating officer, tasked with overseeing all the programs at the agency.
Q: How does Rales JFS help the local Jewish community?
A: First and foremost is our behavioral health department. We have licensed clinical social workers. We have psychiatrists and nurse practitioners. All of our programs are gems. No one is ever turned away for not being able to pay.
We also have the food pantry. People think Boca Raton and Delray Beach are very affluent and there are no poor people, but there’s many low-income seniors. I would say 75% to 80% of our food pantry are low-income seniors on a fixed income, and their situation’s not going to change. We also have young families. It changed after 2008 when the market crashed, we started to see more families using the food pantry. They would come on for a short period of time, but now we see families staying on because they just don’t have enough money. If you are not able to cook, our Meals on Wheels program is wonderful. We have volunteers that deliver frozen kosher meals every Friday, and many low-income individuals qualify to receive them for free or at a discounted rate.
The Cooperman Therapy & Family Resource Center provides therapies for children with special needs. We have speech, we have [occupational therapy, physical therapy, applied behavior analysis] therapy — it’s a one-stop shop that we are proud of. Our Holocaust program has 325 Holocaust survivors. We have a $13 million grant from the claims conference, which supplies us with home care. We have a domestic violence department, where someone calls in and we can do safety planning. We can align them with AVDA (Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse) and they can go to a shelter and we can arrange transportation, making sure the family is safe.
We have 125 volunteers just in our senior center in Delray and over 1,000 volunteers in our database, anything from delivering meals for holidays, helping with Passover seders, helping in the office, in the Cooperman Center.
Q: What are you most proud of concerning your career?
A: The development of the food pantry, because I was involved from the ground floor. Madeline Pargh was one of the founders. We sat on the kitchen floor and talked about how we were going to dispel the image of a food pantry in Boca and Delray, when everybody thought it was an affluent area. We opened with 30 people and we now have over 600 people in the food pantry, just in those two areas. We have outgrown the space we are in. I’m very proud of it.
Q: In honor of your retirement, Rales JFS has created the Beth Levine Legacy Fund. What does this honor mean to you?
A: It means the world to me. It means my legacy can live on for the things I felt were important in the 32 and a half years I was there. We have different types of funds in the agency and this fund has my name on it because of the duration of time I was at the agency and my passion for helping people in the community, and it’s going to be an unrestricted fund. So wherever the funds are needed when we do our budgets or if something comes up, that fund will be used. I didn’t want to restrict it since I [oversaw] all programs. I really just wanted it open.
Q: How can people get involved with Rales JFS?
A: Go on our website. If interested in volunteering, call our main number and you’ll be able to connect with anybody you want to speak to for the variety of programs. Follow us on social media. We post constantly about groups that we have and activities that are going on. And we have a phenomenal newsletter that gives you a glimpse into what we’re doing and what’s coming up.
Q: What is your plan for retirement?
A: My husband and I are going to travel. We have an RV and a tiny house in Georgia. We are just going to kind of float around, no rules, no time, just see how it goes.
For more information on Rales JFS, visit ralesjfs.org or call 561-852-3333.
