“Passion for Mental Health”

When “The Leah and Dr. Gary Smith Family Counseling Center Waiting Room” at Jewish Family Service was officially named on Wednesday, July 3, the entire family was there to enjoy the ceremony honoring their recent ‘Build a Living Legacy’ endowment.

Jewish Family Service of Cincinnati

There are at least three subjects that stir an appreciable passion in Leah and Gary Smith. The first is mental health. The second is giving back to the community. And the third is Jewish Family Service of Cincinnati (JFS). So it was only fitting when the Smiths chose to make a significant donation to JFS—providing them with naming rights for the agency’s counseling center waiting room. This waiting room serves a full spectrum of JFS’s mental health clients, from youth and teens to older adults. The gift was a first-of-its-kind “Building a Living Legacy” donation—a new opportunity for benefactors to give back during their lifetime so they can observe and appreciate the fruits of their labor.

Gary was quick to point out that naming rights were neither his nor Leah’s primary goal. But after many long conversations with JFS CEO Liz Vogel, JFS Agency Director of Development Erica Nyberg, they decided the best fit for their endowment would be naming rights that accented the exceptional mental health services the organization provides. “Every time we would walk by there [the waiting room] for meetings or whatever,” Gary said, “we’d be able to see that we made a difference in people’s lives—and in the ability of JFS to provide counseling, long-term. We really wanted this to be a sustainable program, and we felt that counseling was the area that we, and our family, wanted to endow.”

Leah concurred. “Liz and Erica gave us great guidance. And they were nurturing, too. They knew we wanted to do something substantial. We met several times, we had conversations with family members, but we just couldn’t decide. But then we landed on mental health and we knew that was it. That was the right choice.”

Leah explained why counseling, in particular, resonated with her. “There is some history with mental health in my family,” she said. “My father—we think he probably had PTSD [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] from being a bombardier in World War II. That was really a rough time for my mom and him.” Leah said that stigmas surrounding mental health were so pervasive at the time, no one in her family could talk openly about what they were going through. “My mother was never able to talk about it with anyone. If she were alive today, she’d see how embracing we all are toward the challenges of mental health, and how there is no shame in it. I think she’d find comfort in that.”

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