This Year's Projects
Arizona
Phoenix
Jayme David; Raphael Landesman
The Phoenix J-Serve group is planning a carnival for Jewish children and young adults with special needs. They will work very closely with the Council for Jews with Special Needs in planning this event. Approximately 100 participants with special needs will attend and 200 Jewish teenagers will volunteer on the day of the event. The carnival will include games, face painting, arts and crafts, obstacle courses, and other booths similar to those found at a Purim carnival. The event will accomplish a number of goals: it will provide a wonderful experience for the children and young adults with special needs and will provide an opportunity for the typical Jewish teens to interact and become more comfortable in the presence of the children and young adults with special needs.
Website: www.jservephoenix.org
California
Irvine
Sabrina Sjolseth
Los Angeles
Shauna Naghi
The One Nation project
The Los Angeles service learning project will revolve around hunger and hunger prevention. Teens will be provided with the option of volunteering at one of two food banks in the morning. Before they start, a food bank employee will gives a brief introduction to what food banks are, how they work, and what they do. After the service project is completed, everyone will return to the starting location for a hunger banquet which will give the participants a more tangible idea of hunger issues in the Jewish community. Additional information on what can be done after J-Serve to help the hungry in the Jewish community in Los Angeles and Israel will be distributed.
Sacramento
Jessica Greenstreet
J-Serve Sacramento: A Light on Darfur
The teens in Sacramento will be hosting an awareness concert to shed light on the decimation of the people of Darfur. In addition to the concert, they will be creating educational units to send to schools and youth groups in order inform as many people as possible. Their goal is to enlighten area teens on the mass killings in the region, and motivate them to take their own stand for Darfur.
San Diego
Mickie Targum; Stav Cohen
The Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship in San Diego are planning their service learning project for J-Serve 2007. The students have plans for a number of programs, specifically, to assemble wheelchairs for disabled individuals in under-developed countries; gather food to bring to low-income military service men, women and their families; and bring Israel awareness and cheer to the Jewish elderly in San Diego.
San Diego is a Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship community.
Website: www.jservesd.org
Woodland Hills
Brad May
Canada
Winnipeg
Danial Sprintz
Colorado
Denver
Marty Zimmerman
2007 Mitzvahpalooza
Approximately 200 teens in and around the metropolitan Denver area will engage in a day of community service on Sunday, April 22, 2007. The teens will be involved in hand-on service projects at local area non-profits in the morning and then will reconvene for an inspirational luncheon/keynote address by a young adult who is making a difference in helping the world by using his Jewish values. This keynote will be followed by breakout sessions at which the teens will develop individualized and personal plans on ways that they can each make a difference in their community and the world. The teens will be guided by many of the top Jewish educators in Denver, and the program will include representation from every movement and type of Jew, from unaffiliated to Orthodox.
Connecticut
Stamford
Kari Pollack
The Stamford J-Serve project will offer Jewish teens the opportunity to provide a needed direct service in a number of fields. Teens will begin the day at the JCC with an interactive program led by our Jewish educator, Robert Abrams, on the Jewish tradition of volunteerism. The teens will then be provided with the opportunity to choose which service project they want to attend. Project include: arts & crafts projects and games with the children residing at St. Luke’s Lifework’s family shelter; teaching seniors how to navigate the internet at Fairfield Jewish Home for the Elderly; leading and organizing BINGO games with the residents and their families at Liberation House/Liberation Programs, a residence for those recovering from substance abuse; collecting litter and trash at local parks; organizing food donations and stocking shelves at the Stamford Food Bank and at a kosher food bank at Jewish Family Services and more. The project will be a collaborative effort of the 11 Jewish organizations comprising the Teen Professional Council of Stamford and Greenwich, CT.
District of Columbia
Washington, D.C.
Allison Buchman; Meredith Gettys
The Washington DC Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship, a teen led committee, will be working with Behrend Builders and the DC Public School system for their J-Serve 2007 service learning project. Behrend Builders is a volunteer program that works to repair, renovate and rebuild Washington D.C. Volunteers will be working to rehabilitate a playground at a D.C. school in need. In addition, volunteers will conduct various other renovation projects as the school requires. The goal is to improve an educational facility for children, thereby enhancing their learning experience. The entire group will work together at one site to empower each other to achieve this goal. The lasting impact on this school and the surrounding community will be highly beneficial and much appreciated. The teens will connect with part of Washington D.C.’s underprivileged community and will make a lasting contribution to the school and its environment.
Washington, DC is a Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship community.
Website: www.jservedc.org
Florida
Gainesville
Erin Lang
TBA
Miami
Alyson Adler; Noah Lang
TBA
Orlando
Erica Hruby
TBA
Plantation
Stacee Fisher
TBA
West Palm Beach
Miriam Blue
TBA
Georgia
Roswell
Rabbi Fred Greene
TBA
Kansas
Overland Park
Karen Gerson
TBA
Louisiana
New Orleans
Gail Chalew
J-Serve 2007: Livnot New Orleans
The breaching of the levees by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005 set off a chain reaction of events that turned upside down the lives of every New Orleans Jewish teen. J-Serve 2007 Livnot New Orleans will give Jewish teens an opportunity not only to connect with each other but also participate in a meaningful way in the rebuilding of their community. The teens will work in partnership with the Broadmoor Improvement Association (BIA), which has received national attention for its energetic planning efforts in restoring its community that was flooded by four to eight feet of water. The teens will do a landscaping/beautification project at Broadmoor's Rosa Keller Library, which BIA envisages will serve as a neighborhood community center. They will also participate in home gutting and renovation. This work will be the beginning of a long-term partnership between the Jewish teen community and the BIA.
Maryland
Baltimore
Rachel Wisdom
Baltimore’s service learning project will be a collaborative effort between Jewish Volunteer Connection, the JCC of Greater Baltimore, and Beth El Congregation. The majority of the projects will take place in Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill neighborhood, a diverse neighborhood that has recently begun significant revitalization, due to the strength of its neighborhood association. Service projects will include the removal of garbage from abandoned lots, creation of community gardens, and construction of green spaces for the community, thereby helping to beautify the area while also converting abandoned and often dangerous lots into beautiful and useful neighborhood assets. The work that volunteers and neighbors will accomplish by working together will create tangible benefits for the neighborhood and, once the service projects are completed, the neighbors will be able to sustain and build upon the work that was done for the benefit of the whole community. The development of community gardens and parks will also encourage community building among the diverse residents of Reservoir Hill.
Website: www.associated.org/jserve
Massachusetts
Andover
Rebecca Hellmann
TBA
Boston
Julia Malkin
TBA
Michigan
Detroit/Ann-Arbor
Brooke Lieberman
J-Serve 2007: A ‘Sense’ of Community
This years J-Serve project centers on Teen involvement in the community. Friendship Circle is a place that is close to the hearts of many metro Detroit Teens. Most of them are current volunteers, have volunteered, or are touched by the life of a special needs child that goes to the Friendship Circle. Our theme is based on many sensory experiences that a volunteer experiences. Our opening speaker will be Richard Bernstein, a successful seeing impaired lawyer, Regent for Wayne State University , and host of the CBS Show “Making a Difference” who will talk about the importance of community involvement. There will be many choices of projects that will involve different senses. These organizations will be organized by teens that are involved with them year-round. Our spotlight project is an outdoor sensory park for the special needs children that go to the Friendship Circle, in West Bloomfield, MI. A swing set will allow participants to engage in healthy and fun activities. It will also build trust building between the teen volunteers and the children with special needs. A garden will be a full sensory tool that can be used during the warmer months, and a bird watching and feeding tower to attract sound.
Minnesota
Minneapolis
Rachel Mallinger
J-Serve Tikkun Twin Cities 2007 – Addressing the Achievement Gap
To address the issue of educational equity and the achievement gap, Jewish teens will serve at the Sojourner Truth Academy, a Minneapolis inner city charter school. The student body make-up at Sojourner Truth Academy is 99% students of color with 84% living in poverty and 10% qualifying as special education students. The teen volunteers, recruited from Twin Cities synagogues and youth groups, will perform manual labor to clean-up, repair and improve the quality of the school building and grounds. When teens return to the central meeting site, they will be making flashcards for students in after school ELL programs at the Neighborhood House in St. Paul, a community center serving immigrant populations.
Missouri
Kansas City
Karen Gerson
TBA
St. Louis
Sarah Rubinson
TBA
New York
Bellmore
Elyse Luks
TBA
Brooklyn
Joel Katz
TBA
Manhattan
Jodie Gordon
TBA
Rockland
Cathie Izen
Rockland’s JCC-Y Mitvah Makers are planning the 2007 J-Server project: a Teen Mitzvah Day. Fifty projects will be created for teen participation, including raising funds to send terminally ill children to Camp Simcha and to camps in Israel (Camp Koby, Beit Issie Shapira, and Jaffa Institute). Teens, through yearlong programming and events, will help plan and operate a Special Olympics program in the county and coordinate a blood drive. Through their work on Mitzvah Day, thousands of people locally, nationally and abroad are helped in our mission to provide Gemilut Hasidim.
Westchester, NY
Abbe Marcus; Debby Smith
Greening Westchester—One Mitzvah at a Time
On Saturday, April 14, J-Serve teen leaders have planned a motivational night to raise awareness among their peers on the dangers of Global Warming. To be held at the JCC of Mid-Westchester, the program will consist of a havdallah service; the screening of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” that deals directly with this issue; and a teen-led panel discussing environmental issues and Judaism. This night will help prepare and encourage maximum participation for the Sunday, April 22nd environmentally-focused J-Serve Day, when an estimated 150 teens will come together for a day of clean up and planting in Croton Park along the Hudson River.
New Jersey
Paramus
Shmulie Sondheim
The Chesed Society (Community Service Society), of The Frisch School, a teen organization, will be organizing and running a massive food drive on April 22, 2007 to help alleviate hunger in New Jersey. The day will begin with a text analysis session where the students will look at and analyze Jewish sources regarding the obligation of Jews to support Jewish organizations as well as non-Jewish organizations. The students will then engage in the actual act of Chesed planned for the day. Students will begin by collecting all the food from the drop off centers, which include most nearby synagogues, Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, in Bergen County and Paramus. Drop off centers will also be local Community centers throughout Bergen County and Paramus, such as local Jewish Community Centers (JCCs). Students will pack the food in boxes and prepare them for pickup on Monday.
MetroWest
Adam Oded
As the centerpiece of a three part program, the teen group will be meeting with senior citizens in Federation Housing on April 22. During their visit the teens will ask the seniors about their recollections about Israel: its founding, the early years, the wars, their travels there, etc. Teens will gain great insight into Israeli history and the seniors will have their stories and recollections retold by the teens.
Website: http://metrowest.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/jci-at-doi/
North Carolina
Winston-Salem
Laurie Shapiro
TBA
Ohio
Canton
Ellen Shankle
Jewish teens in Canton will participate in a number of projects to better their community. Participants will have the option of cleaning the environment, spending time with children who are ill or otherwise in need, cleaning the local Jewish cemetery, cooking food for area firefighters and individuals with mental and/or physical disabilities, assembling “exit packages” for ex-offenders and formerly homeless individuals at a local shelter, and volunteering at Jewish Family Services.
Cleveland
Debbie Orenstein ; Elyse Willin
Cleveland’s service learning project will be organized by the Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship in the area. Service activities will start with a fundraising car wash for an organization in Israel and letter writing to Israeli soldiers. The letter writing and car wash will demonstrate and encourage support for Israel, as well as bring the teens together. Although the car wash, letter writing, and other service activities will continue all day long at the JCC, some of the participants will be bussed to our downtown location after about an hour at the JCC. At the downtown location, teens will be cleaning up a park as well as feeding and interacting with the homeless in our city. Cleveland envisions our day of physical and emotional enlightenment to conclude at The Temple-Tifereth Israel with a small thank you reception, reflection discussion, and community-wide Yom HaZikaron service and memorial ceremony.
Cleveland is a Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship community.
Website: www.jservecleveland.org
Toledo
Lori Morse
J-Serve Toledo will consist of many projects. One group of religious school students will organize a fundraiser collection for Magen David Adom in Israel. This collection will begin on March 10 and culminate on April 22. A second group will do planting and clean-up at the local JCC/YMCA campus (2-3:30 – open to all ages). A third group will run a “Caring Carnival,” for mentally challenged individuals at the Josina Lott Residential Home (4-5:30 – 9th – 12th grade). Finally, a fourth group, The B’nai Tzedek Teen Philanthropy Group, will serve a spaghetti dinner elderly residents at a Pelham Manor, a senior residence facility (5-7pm).
Youngstown
Gail Froomkin
The Jewish Community Center of Youngstown is a true ‘center’ of activities for the Youngstown Jewish Community. The JCC features a public memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust, and in association with the Holocaust Education and Commemoration Task Force. The project of developing a garden around the public memorial will be based on the book “I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-44”. Teens working with adults from the JCC, JCRC as well as the staff from Youngstown State University’s Jewish Studies department, will learn more about life in the camps during WWII while creating a living memorial for the community at large.
Pennsylvania
Philadelphia
Jennifer Arney; Samantha Papurt;
Philadelphia’s service learning project will focus on the issue of hunger and poverty. They will address the issue by having groups of teens do one of several service projects: volunteering at a soup kitchen, physically cleaning up an impoverished area, lobbying to raise the poverty line through a letter writing campaign, visiting the underprivileged elderly, and interacting with underprivileged children. They want to empower people to help themselves. Community members living in these poverty-stricken areas will be included and invited to work beside them and hopefully inspire them to continue helping themselves, which will ultimately result in continuous improvement of these areas. After the participants complete their service projects, everyone will join together again for experiential and engaging reflection through a Jewish lens.
Website: www.b-linked.org/j-serve
Pittsburgh
Lauren Mendelson
J-Serve Pittsburgh: Yad byad (Hand in hand)
More than 200 Jewish teens in the Pittsburgh area will gather at the Jewish Community Center on April 22, 2007 to donate their time to those less fortunate. The teens will discuss the importance of community service with local politicians and relate their service to their Jewish values in small teen-led groups. The volunteers will then be bussed from the JCC to a school in an at-risk community where they will plant, mentor, paint, clean, tutor, and more. The day will wrap up with an end-of-the-day party at the JCC which will include music, slideshows, and refreshments.
Website: www.jserve.org/pitt
Texas
Houston
Robin Sheldon; Lewis Sohinki;
Houston’s service learning project will be organized by the participants in the Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship. The day will begin at the JCC Merfish Teen Center with an introductory program to J-Serve and the day’s activities. Teens will be sent to volunteer with different organizations around the city (specifics to be decided). Teens will return to the JCC for a reflection program, BBQ and social event to end the day.
Website:
www.jservehouston.org
San Antonio
Rachel Rustin, Coordinator of Youth and Family Services
The San Antonio Jewish community’s service-learning project will pair local Jewish teens with participants from our Inclusion Program and from the Association of Retarded Citizens of San Antonio (ARC) for a day of learning and service. Jewish teens will be converging on the San Antonio Jewish Community Center on April 22 for the city’s first J-Serve. They will spend the afternoon volunteering with participants from the Association for Retarded Citizens – San Antonio at sites such as the San Antonio Food Bank. With participants from all of the city’s youth groups, the day promises to be rewarding for both the participants and the community.
Washington
Seattle
Matt Lemchen; Tzachi Litov
The Seattle Jewish Teen Leaders Fellowship is planning their J-Serve project to work with different shelters and clinics that serve the homeless in the greater Seattle area to help make a significant difference in the lives of a broad range of homeless individuals and families. Participants will be divided into 6-8 groups and will be transported by bus to individual sites throughout the greater Seattle area. Service sites are yet to be confirmed, but will likely include: the 45th Street Clinic, Gospel Union Mission, Jewish Family Services, Kirkland Teen Center, Boom Town Café, and Tree House. The teens will be educated about the work of these organizations and will have the chance to participate and volunteer at the site. Each participant will receive contact information for the service site they attended, to allow them the chance to pursue further involvement.
Website:
www.jserveseattle.org/
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