Chai Society

Chai Society is a nonprofit in Scottsdale, Arizona, for Jewish women in their 20s and 30s. It was co-founded in 2025 by Stephanie Bachus, and the idea behind it is simple: nobody in the community should have to go through this stretch of life alone.

Your 20s and 30s are full of change: new jobs, new cities, new chapters, and friendships that don’t form as easily as they used to. Chai Society is built for exactly that moment. It’s a place to meet people, find your group, and stay connected to Jewish life while everything else is moving.

The calendar mixes the social with the meaningful. There are happy hours and mixers, a spooky movie night, a mahjong lesson with the Scottsdale Mahj Society. There are workout classes and wellness meetups, and workshops where members share what they know. And at the heart of it are Jewish moments: Shabbat dinners, the High Holidays, and nights of learning.

Chai Society works alongside other groups rather than competing with them. Its co-founder has said she wants it to be an organization that lifts up other Jewish organizations. Its brother group, Chai for the Guys, does the same for men, and the two host together, from a country summer mixer to a pickleball game for Sharsheret, the national nonprofit supporting Jewish women and families facing breast and ovarian cancer.

Chai is the Hebrew word for life.

We made Chai Society a collection, not a single shirt: a crewneck, matching shorts and a tote, all speaking the same visual language.

The centrepiece is an oversized crewneck in a fine olive-and-white micro-stripe, finished with a solid white collar, cuffs and bottom band. Across the chest, Chai is set in big, arched collegiate letters, embroidered in white and outlined in olive so they stand up off the stripe, with society written underneath in a loose olive script. The same mark is stitched again across the back, so it reads from both sides.

The shorts turn it into a set. They’re fold-over shorts in an athletic-wear fabric, custom-dyed and digitally printed so the stripe matches the crewneck exactly, and worn together as one outfit.

The tote is cream canvas with a forest-green base and straps, with chai society stitched in the same script as the sweatshirt.

Nothing is decorated on its own. The olive stripe, the white trim, the cream, the forest green and the handwritten script repeat from piece to piece, so the three read as one collection: the easy, collegiate feel of a campus crewneck, carrying the name of their own community.

The crewneck started as a flat drawing that set out every detail, from the white collar, cuffs and band to where the embroidery sits. The finished piece matches it.