Projects · Fully scoped · seeking funding
JCC Beit Dan, Kharkiv
Kharkiv, Ukraine · Winter resilience, November to March
What this is
A Jewish community center serving 2,000+ members from a single building: children's education, elderly services, psychological support, and an emergency hub when the power goes out. The generator bought in 2022 as a stopgap cannot sustain full operations.
This is a winter package: power, mobility and a warm room through the November to March season. The center's leadership assessed the needs, identified vendors and designed the solutions, and resolved part of the original list locally. What remains is what the community cannot solve alone.
What gets built
Backup energy system
Battery storage, inverters, generator integration. The building runs through blackouts: heat, light, refrigeration and charging stay on.
Community vehicle
Transport for families and children when transit stops, outreach to elderly and low-mobility members in cut-off neighborhoods, supply delivery. A year-round asset.
Warm hub operations
Heating, charging, hot meals, safe space and outreach across the four winter months.
Why now
Winter is the constraint: the package has to be in place before November. Donor fatigue after four years of war has dried up the channels that once supported communities like this one, and Jewish organizations are winding down Ukraine emergency funding more broadly. Infrastructure at this scale falls outside the center's operating budget. The only missing piece is funding.
How it runs
I sourced this project through JCC Global, whose executive director connected me with the center's leadership. The community runs vendor selection through its established competitive-bid process; I verify the need is real and unmet, oversee procurement milestones, verify delivery on the ground, and provide full reconciliation and reporting from commitment through close-out. A verification trip to Kharkiv precedes procurement. All equipment is owned by the community.