Dear Community Member,

I would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date regarding our recent negotiations with our lender, TD Bank.  As I am sure most of you are aware, the initial Sheriff's Sale of our building, slated for October 24, 2011, was postponed.  We had two subsequent automatic postponements on November 7 and November 21, 2011.  All during this period of time, we had been meeting with community stakeholders see whether we could come up with a solution to solve our fiscal problems on a short-term and long-term basis.

TD Bank, realizing that we were working diligently to fix the problems, gave us an additional postponement back on November 21, 2011, which ended today.  While we are continuing to speak with members our diverse community, the bank would not extend the deadline past today.

At a JCC Board meeting held on November 17, 2011, knowing that there might be a possibility of us no longer having a postponement to a Sheriff's Sale, a majority vote of the board gave me the authority to file for a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (Reorganization), in order to preserve our real asset in the building.  As we did not have any other option for today, I exercised that option this past Monday and filed the paperwork to stop the sale.

So what does that mean to all of us.  First of all, we are still continuing our talks to see how we can come together as a community to refinance and revitalize the JCC.  Secondly, we now have a bit of breathing room with respect to our prior bills, which are set aside for the current time period.  Our intention is to keep the facility open and to provide as many programs as we can, while we plan for the future.

Of course this repositioning does not come without some bumps in the road.  It was with much dismay that I was forced to halt the operations at Center Play School this past Friday.  As many of you may not be aware, this was my wife Ruthie and my first stop at the JCC several year ago when our son went all the way through CPS.  This experience made both my wife and I committed members and volunteers at the "J". When we realized that we would be unable to process another payroll for the teachers, even after the tuition we received from the parents, we did not take those payments and advised the teachers and parents. We tried to secure additional funds from several community agencies and parties, but were unsuccessful.  At a meeting last Friday, as a alternative, we advised both the parents and teacher that we would make the rooms available at no charge, in order that the teachers and students could transition out thru the mid-term in late December, if needed.

While we go through this upcoming period, I would like to urge all of you to continue your memberships, pledges and support.  This will be our last chance to keep the building viable, and I will need everyone's help to accomplish this.  Only YOU can make this happen.  Speak to your friends, your relatives and other members.  No matter how much money we raise to solve some of the current problems, it will mean nothing unless our membership continues to support our agency, either as a member or benefactor.  We will require current funds to pay current bills, if we wish to survive.  Please do what you can to help.  This building was not built by any one part of our community.  It was constructed with money from a cross section of the community.  It can only survive if we all come together to support the institution that supports the whole community.  Thank you for your past and continued support and help.

Warmest Regards,

Stephen S Levy
JCC Board President