Download the capital pledge form, to help Beit Am build a new home. This form requires Adobe Acrobat reader.
Nearly 25 years ago, a group of 20 Beit Am families agonized over a very large decision: whether to buy a house on 36th Street to become the official home of the Beit Am Jewish Community. This was a huge financial commitment for the families and seen as a large risk. Could we afford it? Would we use all that space? Before that time, services had been held in members. homes or in the OSU Memorial Union, and Sunday school (The Valley Jewish Community Cooperative School - VJCCS) met in such locations as Westminster House, while the "library" moved to each location in the trunk of a car.
Beit Am has now grown to about 120 families. The current building has served us very well, but we have outgrown it and are ready for a larger facility that can carry us for the next 25 years. Our Sunday school is overcrowded, our parking is a problem, and many of our events, including B'nei Mitzvah and High Holy Days services, the Hanukkah party, and the Community Passover Seder, no longer fit in our building. Unlike most other congregations, Beit Am has not requested an on-going capital contribution from its members, which has left us financially ill-prepared for our needed expansion.
As you know, three years ago we raised approximately $250,000 to purchase five acres of land off Harrison Boulevard for the site of our new building. We also commissioned an architect to do a preliminary design for the building and to estimate the cost of the project. The project as conceptualized will cost about $2 million to complete. We have begun a Capital Campaign to raise money towards our new home from a combination of member pledges, naming opportunities, foundation requests and other miscellaneous fundraising activities. We expect the process to take about five years, but hope to break ground when we have raised sufficient funds to start.
While the preliminary design shows one possibility, we are not committed to this specific building plan or even this specific location. Many factors will affect what the future home of Beit Am looks like: the success of the Capital Campaign, future development in the vicinity of our land, and the availability of other land or an existing building that might be renovated to fit our needs. We are requesting that you make a pledge to the Capital Campaign, payable over one to five years, which will be used to build or renovate a beautiful facility and, if we are especially successful, provide an endowment for building and grounds maintenance.
We ask that you take some time to consider the importance of this effort, to evaluate your own priorities as a member of the Jewish community, and to support this project with a meaningful and generous financial contribution.
Please feel free to contact either us with any questions. We thank you in advance for your contribution, your kindness, and your support throughout this project.