Bluffton homeless shelter named for Rabbi Theodore S. Levy

Growing up, Seth Levy said his dad taught him the importance of community and of helping others -- both lifelong commitments for Rabbi Theodore S. Levy.

From helping the homeless to advocating for equal rights, Rabbi Levy, who died in 2004, earned a reputation as an ecumenical man of service, according to officials at a local homeless program, Family Promise of Beaufort County.

The program operates a homeless shelter in Bluffton. On Thursday, it named that shelter the Rabbi Theodore S. Levy Family Center.

The center is open during the day and provides homeless families a place to shower, wash laundry, use a computer to search for a job and work with a case manager. The families spend their nights with host congregations from area churches and synagogues, where volunteers cook dinner and set up cots in community rooms.

Since opening in July, Family Promise has helped five families achieve independence. It's currently helping two more do the same.

At the dedication ceremony, Family Promise board president Susan Milne spoke of Rabbi Levy's work.

In the 1960s, he marched for equal rights with Martin Luther King Jr.

As a rabbi in New York in 1968, he founded the Peace Day Care Center in Syracuse, which provided meals, clothing and education to underprivileged children.

In the 1980s, he founded the Inter-religious Council of Central New York. The organization still exists as InterFaith Works, and offers programs to the homeless, children, the elderly and the disabled.

In 1991, Rabbi Levy moved south to serve Congregation Beth Yam on Hilton Head Island. He became a member of the Hilton Head Hospital's Institutional Review Board and Ethics Committee; the Target 2010 Healthy Communities Task Force for Beaufort County; the People Working Together Project; and a project that helped residents obtain access to clean water and sewer service.

Milne said naming the center for Levy will remind others that "talking about homeless families and saying that something needs to be done is not enough."

Seth Levy and his sister, Cyndi, said the work of Family Promise is something their dad would have loved to be involved with.

"Anytime anyone or any organization was in trouble, he would go help," Seth Levy said.

That approach will now live on at the center.