“Every time I go into the KJJC building, I enter a world of care and kindness.” These are the words of 12-year-old Stas.
Stas is an exceptionally gifted boy. He is the winner of several contests in Math, Romanian, English, and Russian. However, from time to time he places second on account of his bad handwriting. He is fond of playing chess and he is an avid reader. He started to read at three and since then he has been reading whatever comes into his hands. Besides this, Stas possesses rare artistic talent and outstanding articulation.
But, as it often happens, God blesses you equally with happiness and grief, luck and disappointments. The boy’s mother died when he was just a week old. His father almost immediately vanished into thin air. He takes no part in boy’s life, doesn’t communicate with him, and refuses to financially support him. Stas is being raised by his grandmother and great-grandmother on his mother’s side. His famous first word, “mom”, was directed particularly to his grandma. And to this day he has been calling her this.

At the KJJC, Stas’s family participates in several programs at the same time. Within the Shop program his family gets food coupons once a month. The SOS program helps them pay the utility bills. And the Humanitarian Assistance program supplied him with big packages with clothes and books. To his joy, he was recently presented with a computer.
“Jewish Family Service NES made my dream come true. Now I have a computer on my desk.” And there is no end to the child’s joy. Despite the lack of academic manuals or any assistance, Stas is plugging away at the smart machine. He has mastered computer skills on his own. Naturally—it was his dream.
Stas’s “mom” is employed as a homecare nurse at the “Hesed” organization. His great-grandmother does not work, of course. The overall income of the family of three amounts is $145 per month. The monthly utility bills add up to $30.

The main problems the family faces include difficulty in prompt payments for the bills and a lack of healthy food and rest.
But Stas is not to be disappointed by those problems. He takes delight in attending chess and English courses at KJJC, which demonstrates his persistent striving for new knowledge. This summer he attended the summer camp program. Also, his family had a chance to rest up in a family retreat.
“The “NES” foundation offers assistance to the Jewish families in the true sense of the word “live”” – that’s the way Stas describes the activities of the Jewish Family Service in Moldova.
Nowadays, the child is dreaming of reading “Romeo and Juliet” in the original. And gets really frustrated by the fact, that “it is almost impossible to obtain such an expensive book… maybe, some other time…”
Stas’s secret dream is to become a mathematician, doing research - for he has a passionate desire to invent, discover, or “do something that nobody has ever been able to do before”.
And his dream is sure to become a reality. Because it can’t possibly be any other way.