About the project
The Beit Rachel Youth & Community Center was built to serve residents of the northwestern triangle of the Kiryat Hayovel neighborhood, which consists primarily of large-scale housing projects. The center, which is also known as the Brazil Housing Project Community Center, is under the auspices of the larger Sally & Philip Lown Community Center. The Jerusalem Foundation helped establish the center in 1972, supporting building construction and the purchase of furnishings. It created the Kappel-Morrison Day Care Center, a two-classroom facility with an outdoor play area behind the center in 1980. Over the years, the center’s operations were limited due to inadequate resources and the building’s increasingly poor condition. In 1995, the Foundation renovated the center’s basketball court and in 1996, undertook a major renovation project that included creation of a computer room, an audio-visual center and activity rooms, structural improvements, and exterior and interior repairs, and rededicated the center as Beit Rachel Benin. The Foundation also has supported activities at the center for senior citizens, new immigrants, children and at-risk teenagers, some of which have been held in coordination with the nearby Argentina School. The rear portion of the center later became home to the Shaked School for Special Education and, more recently, the Hettena Day Care Center.
