GCJFS names two new directors

A new Director of Jewish Family Service Programming, and a new Director of Marketing and Development have been named by Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services.

(L to R) Dorothy Chambers and Cathy Gardner Dorothy Chambers will be supervising and continuing to develop social service programming for the Jewish community. Under her guidance is the counseling program, senior companion and support services, the family emergency fund (Koved Fund), Jewish life education programming, mentoring for single parent families and Holocaust survivor programming.

Chambers grew up in Queens, NY and moved to Pinellas County in 1974. With a master’s degree in nursing and community health, Chambers specialized in the hightech nursing arena. Following that, she established a substance-abuse program unit at a Pinellas Park hospital. Chambers joined Gulf Coast JFS in 2002 as a community educator focusing on substance abuse prevention for seniors. As the director of the BRITE (Brief Intervention and Treatment for Elders) program, Chambers developed intervention techniques for the growing population of seniors abusing alcohol, prescription medication and illicit drugs.

Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish environment, Chambers says she has embraced all streams of Judaism and is “working to build the Jewish connection to Jewish Family Services.”

The new Director of Marketing and Development is Cathy Gardner. She joins Gulf Coast JFS after 10 years at the Tampa JCC & Federation.

A fourth generation native of Tampa, Gardner has been active in the Jewish community as a youngster, an adult volunteer and as a Jewish communal professional in both Tampa and Pinellas County. She has served as the Campaign Director for the Jewish Federation of Pinellas County and later the Tampa Jewish Federation. She was also the Marketing Director for the Tampa JCC & Federation for eight years. While at the JCC of Tampa, Gardner directed the Tampa Bay Jewish Film Festival, all programming and other special events. Most recently, she served the Tampa JCC Director.

Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services’ nonsectarian Community Care programs serve 32 counties including the Tampa Bay area. Its traditional Jewish Family Service Division serves Pinellas and portions of Pasco Counties and is a beneficiary agency of the Jewish Federation of Pinellas & Pasco Counties.

The agency’s headquarters is located at 14041 Icot Blvd., Clearwater, FL 33760. For more information about Gulf Coast, call (727) 479-1800, or go online to www. gcjfs.org.