Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
KleinLife has served the Northeast Philadelphian Jewish community since 1975. This year, the community is coming together to celebrate the 50 years that KleinLife has spent improving the lives of Jewish immigrants, refugees and everyday Philadelphians.
Andrea Kimelheim is the active adult program director at the community center, and with 27 years of service, she is also the longest-tenured employee at KleinLife. She laughed as she recalled how the world worked back then and how she first learned about and applied to the job.
“I actually answered a written classified advertisement in the Jewish Exponent,” she said. “That’s how long I have been here. That doesn’t exist anymore! I came in for a temporary role, and it evolved over the years.”
Kimelheim said that she stuck around because the mission of the JCC is too important to ignore. KleinLife is unique for the fact that many of its clientele rely on its services beyond it being a place to socialize or exercise.
“We have people from lots of different backgrounds, lots of different communities, that all come together. We’re able to bring a sense of community, a sense of belonging, and for those who need some additional services, we have a lot of different things,” Kimelheim said.
When the JCC was founded in the ’70s, it resembled most other JCCs. It was a place for young adults and their families, as well as older Jews, to come and enjoy various events and services. As that original crowd grew older, their wants and needs changed, and KleinLife began to cater its services to those needs.
“That changed the dynamic here because we added the lunch program and some other things we needed to do to meet the needs of the candidates from there,” Kimelheim said.
KleinLife has a voucher program for Pennsylvania farmers markets so that economically disadvantaged clients can get affordable access to healthy, organic food. It also offers tech-help classes, career services and Russian-language help for those who don’t speak English.
“It’s a great help to people on a fixed income,” Kimelheim said of the voucher program.
KleinLife has more than 35,000 people per year come through its doors. Over 200 Holocaust survivors rely on the center for services. Earlier this year, KleinLife shifted its Montgomery County-based older adult programs to Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, a site that has better access for elder residents.
“We try and connect them to social services as needed. For some people, they’re happy to have a full meal here as the center point of their day. [For] some of them, this is their main meal, and that’s nice to be able to offer,” Kimelheim said.
While KleinLife has offerings for children, families and young adults too, what separates it from other Jewish community centers is the role it plays in the lives of older adults in Northeast Philadelphia and beyond. As the leader of the adult programming at KleinLife, Kimelheim is focused on the older demographic that uses the JCC.
She said that one of the organization’s top goals at this point is to return to the level of services that were offered at KleinLife before the COVID-19 pandemic. While 2020 is now a half decade in the past, there is still a lot of work to do in order to bring KleinLife back to normalcy.
Kimelheim said that another thing that has changed over the time she has been here, and the entire 50 years Kleinlife has existed, is the definition of a senior.
“[We’re introducing] different kinds of things that might be of interest as the population is getting younger,” she said. “The definition of a senior is pretty wide. It encompasses multiple generations, and there’s been a generational shift. We’re programming for a different generation who have different interests and different tastes.”
While KleinLife’s offerings are diverse and its clientele is varied, at its core it has a simple role to play in the community: offering a place for Jews to go and be around each other.
“When you’re no longer working or involved in something, to have something to structure your time [is important]. What I hear, whether from someone who comes only for certain things, or someone who is here every day, it’s the place that they can go and be comfortable and socialize, and to learn about things whether it’s a current event, a craft or just exercising their brain,” Kimelheim said. “It’s important to them to have that place to call their home away from home.”
As for the future, KleinLife is confident in its place in the community because what it offers is unlikely to lose its importance. Generations of people have come through its doors from 1975 to today.
“The people may have changed, but the role we play for them is not all that different,” Kimelheim said.
