Who/What: Jack & Jill Center is pleased to present CITY Furniture with a plaque for its $250,000 donation to the Madelaine Halmos Academy Capital Campaign. The presentation will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 7, at 10:30 a.m. at Madelaine Halmos Academy’s (MHA) new state-of-the-art private elementary school campus in Fort Lauderdale. The Academy is an expansion of Jack & Jill Center’s Early Education Center and debuted in June 2021.
The brand-new state-of-the-art MHA is the tangible result of a $10.6 million fundraising effort, over $10.2 million of which has already been raised to date by the Madelaine Halmos Academy Capital Campaign.
Jack & Jill Center CEO Heather Siskind and CFO Susan Stanley will be in attendance along with CITY Furniture CEO Andrew Koenig, Keith and Kelly Koenig, and Steve Halmos. Guests will enjoy coffee and breakfast bites.
CITY Furniture’s gift was specifically designated for the portico in the front of the MHA building. The Koenig family is dear friends of the Halmos family and made this generous donation to recognize Madelaine for her tremendous contributions to Jack & Jill Center.
MHA’s kindergarten through fifth grade program currently serves 126 total students from high-need families, including early education and elementary school education, who benefit from the Jack & Jill education program. MHA has the capabilities to serve 220 students total and is projected to reach that goal by 2024. MHA’s new building created 37 new full-time jobs.
Early education is offered year-round at Jack & Jill Center, which has earned the highest level of accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and one of only a few in Broward County to be awarded with this accreditation. Most MHA students come from high-need families and receive tuition funding from Step Up for Students, a state-approved nonprofit scholarship funding organization that helps administer five scholarships for Florida school children.
MHA provides a safe, academically sound and socially supportive environment for all learners. With its new building, MHA significantly extended its offerings by providing an accredited school incorporating research-based best practices.
Some of MHA’s features include a technology-driven STEAM curriculum; dedicated, highly-skilled staff and educators with low student to teacher ratios; extended school day for students; daily healthy breakfast, lunch and snacks; extracurricular activities fostering healthy social-emotional growth and personal development, educational field trips, after-school programming, summer camp experiences, and on-site counseling and therapeutic services.
Each child who continues his or her education to graduate from high school will receive a two-year college scholarship from the Jack & Jill Center Opportunity Scholarship Fund. The sponsorship is graciously funded by
Steve and Madelaine Halmos.
Fundraising momentum is still tracking to reach the $10.6 million goal, and the Campaign is seeking additional donors. For more information or to donate to the Madelaine Halmos Academy Capital Campaign, contact Chief Development Officer Maria Meyer at 954.463.8772 ext. 203 or mmeyer@jackandjillcenter.org, or visit www.jackandjillcenter.org/mha-campaign/.
Where:
Jack & Jill Center – Madelaine Halmos Academy
1315 W. Broward Blvd.
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312.
When: Wednesday, Sept. 7 at 10:30 a.m.
About Jack & Jill Center:
Jack & Jill Center’s mission is to strengthen children and families through innovative education, supportive programming and community engagement. It achieves its mission by focusing on both the children and family units as a whole, so that the entire household, children and parents alike, are able to reach their full potential. Since 1942, Jack & Jill Center has served more than 26,000 children and families in South Florida. It currently serves as a NAEYC-accredited year-round early learning program for children aged six weeks through preschool, as well as an elementary school. The Madelaine Halmos Academy’s (MHA) new state-of-the-art elementary school building, an expansion of Jack & Jill Center’s Early Education Center, debuted in April 2021. Serving students from high-need working families in kindergarten–fifth grade, the transformational project, is geared to prepare students for success in career and life and be one of the highest-performing schools in Broward County. For more information about Jack & Jill visit www.jackandjillcenter.org, https://www.instagram.com/jackjillcenter/, https://www.facebook.com/jackjillcenter, https://twitter.com/jackjillcenter, or call 954.463.8772.
About CITY Furniture:
CITY Furniture, a South-Florida based, family-owned American furniture and mattress retailer and fine upholstery manufacturer and one of America’s Top 100 furniture retailers, operates over twenty-two showrooms from Miami through Vero Beach, and in Southwest and Central Florida, as well as fourteen Ashley Home Store showrooms as the brand’s Southeast and Southwest Florida licensee. For more information, please visit: www.cityfurniture.com.
