Grantee Highlights

Patients come from all over the world seeking care in the Texas Medical Center, encountering many needs from transportation and meals to living accommodations, child-care assistance, and personal counseling. Aishel House support patients and meets many of these needs through apartments within walking distance of all of the hospitals in the Medical Center. The Herzstein Charitable Foundation provided support towards a residential floor in the new Aishel House.

The Bob Bullock Museum hosts over 600,000 visitors, including over 100,000 school children, annually. Housed in the museum, sit the remains of French explorer La Salle’s failed 1684 attempt to establish a colony in the Gulf of Mexico. This 300-year-old ship, La Belle, was excavated off the Texas coast by the Texas Historical Commission. The La Belle and its associated artifacts stand as the most significant recovered shipwreck illuminating North American settlement. It was the attempt to colonize Texas by the French that spurred the Spanish to establish a presence in the region, resulting in the Texas we know today. The Herzstein Charitable Foundation provided support towards the La Belle augmented reality enhancement to the exhibition, allowing visitors the unique opportunity to see moving 3D images of La Belle and a glimpse into life on the ship at that time.

Cristo Rey Jesuit strives to inspire and prepare students of limited economic resources to succeed in college and lead their communities as compassionate, committed, and competent men and women for the greater glory of God. The school attracts a unique student population with high academic achievement, but little means to pay for a private college preparatory education. All of Cristo Rey’s students are in need of financial aid, much of which is earned through work study partnerships, providing students with real world work experience at blue-ribbon companies across Houston.

Founded in 1954 by a number of public-spirited Houstonians to rescue the 1847 Kellum-Noble House from demolition, The Heritage Society has since saved an additional nine historic buildings, moved them from various locations to join the Kellum-Noble House in Sam Houston Park, and restored them to reflect their respective eras. These ten buildings, along with the Museum Gallery, serve as historic reference points and exhibition spaces for more than 23,000 artifacts that document life in Houston from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s. The Heritage Society endeavors to provide a window into the past, telling the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, educational programs, film, video, and other content.

The Holocaust Museum Houston, Lester and Sue Smith Campus, completed a $34 million expansion of its original home at 5401 Caroline Street. More than doubling in size to a total of 57,000 square feet, the new facility ranks as the nation's fourth largest Holocaust museum and is fully bilingual in English and Spanish. The new three-story structure houses a welcome center, four permanent galleries and two changing exhibition galleries, classrooms, research library, café, 200-seat indoor theater, and 175-seat outdoor amphitheater. More than 50 screens, mini-theaters, and interactive terminals are featured throughout the Museum. The Herzstein Charitable Foundation provided support towards the Museum’s new indoor theater.

Located in the poverty-stricken southeast Houston Sunnyside neighborhood, Pro-Vision’s 27 year history began as an after-school program serving young men in a tiny rented space and has flourished into a multifaceted educational approach on 21 acres including a state charter school serving boys and girls in grades 3-12, a character development program, and a career training program blending workforce and educational emphasis to ensure college and career readiness. Pro-Vision also has a 2 acre working Urban Farm/Aquaponics Program that uses the production and sale of produce to instill the spirit of entrepreneurialism while addressing prevalent community issues such as obesity and the lack of access to healthy and fresh food options. The Herzstein Charitable Foundation supported Pro-Vision’s capital campaign, providing support towards the construction of its new multi-purpose building.

The Herzstein Charitable Foundation supported the transformational campaign for Stages’ new home, The Gordy, a 66,850 square foot three-theatre campus located at 800 Rosine Street opening in January, 2020. The Gordy will offer a fully-equipped purpose-built home for theatre-making in Houston, including rehearsal and education studios; full production and design workshops; meeting, event, and shared community work spaces; and a full administrative suite. Founded in 1978, the Theatre has grown to become Houston’s leading mid-sized theatre company, the city’s sixth largest nonprofit performing arts producer overall, and the largest outside Houston’s own theatre district. Stages is one of the region’s leading artistic employers, producing an average of 12 productions per year totaling more than 380 performances and welcoming 65,000+ visitors each season.

The Herzstein Charitable Foundation completed a five year pledge to support a permanent home for TPPF at 901 Congress Avenue in Austin. The Foundation works to promote and defend liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise in Texas and the nation by educating and affecting policymakers and the Texas public policy debate with academically sound research and outreach. Funded by thousands of individuals, foundations, and corporations, TPPF does not accept government funds or contributions to influence the outcomes of its research.

The Herzstein Charitable Foundation provided support towards the Wulfe Family Chair in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. This endowed chair was created for the department chairman, Dr. Francisco, one of the nation's leading physicians in the field of traumatic brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, and spasticity management. Dr. Francisco is the principal investigator in various research protocols, including robotic therapy in people who have suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury and delivering baclofen and botulinum toxins directly into the spinal cord to treat muscle spasticity. Future income from the endowment will be used to support research and academic initiatives of the department and to help ensure UTHealth's ability to recruit and retain talented faculty members.