Big Giving Starts Small Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, Tenafly, NJ Penny Harvest—a “common cents” initiative that grew from one child’s desire to feed the homeless—has come to the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, the first agency to embrace the project in Bergen County. The Penny Harvest mission is to collect unused pennies gathering in jars and pockets all across America, and turn those pennies into grants for community organizations. Leading the New Jersey effort, the children’s department at the JCC encouraged first to fifth grade students who attend the JCC after-school program, Finish the Day at the J, and other children in the community to join together to make a difference in the lives of others. And that is just what they did. The JCC maintenance department hand-built a giant container, shaped like a menorah in honor of Hanukkah, and the children placed it in the JCC lobby so that members and visitors could deposit their loose change in the bin. Six weeks later, the group went on a field trip to the Valley National Bank in Tenafly to count what they collected. Each child got to drop bags of coins into the bank’s change-counting machine, and watched attentively as the dollar amount on the counter rose higher and higher. To everyone’s surprise and delight, when the last bag was counted, they had raised more than $1,300. “A key mission for the JCC is to teach everyone the importance of giving back, and Penny Harvest takes this concept to a new level, as it teaches young children that they can really make a difference,” says Michal Kleiman, director for the JCC Finish the Day at the J program. The group decided to donate $800 to the UJA Northern NJ Emergency Crisis Fund to help people in the local community recover from the current economic crisis, and gifted the remaining $500 to Make-A-Wish Foundation. Skylar Oliver (left) and Noa Slotky, two students in the JCC after-school program, count pennies at Northern Valley Bank.
No Dropped Stitches Here Soloway JCC, Ottawa, ON Each and every Wednesday afternoon, on the second floor of the Soloway JCC, you can hear lively conversations and debates taking place among piles of wool and knitting needles. The Mitzvah Knitters are women in their 70’s, 80’s and 90’s who meet once a week for a couple of hours to make blankets, hats, shawls or whatever else they can create from their donated wool for senior homes, shelters, street people, or anyone who needs it. In honor of Mitzvah Day in early December, the knitters made 200 hats and scarves. Half of them were distributed in lunch bags for people living on the street, and the other half went to the Snowsuit Fund. They made blankets that were paired with stuffed animals and distributed to children who have been removed from their homes. This remarkable group of women is keeping Ottawa warm and cozy, one stitch at a time.
Wee Recyclers Clean Up Sid Jacobson JCC, East Hills, NY The Sid Jacobson JCC Early Childhood Center (ECC) is going green and supporting different environmental initiatives. The drive began last year when a conscious effort was made dramatically to reduce the amount of parent notices being printed. Instead, the JCC sent them electronically. Parents reacted positively, and the amount of paper saved was considerable. The next phase of the program began in October, when teachers and students started recycling water bottles. The classes made a spot for the bottles in the classrooms and then brought them to a big recycling can in front of the ECC office. The children became enthusiastic recyclers and pushed their carts to the bin to dump their bottles. In just three months, the ECC has recycled over 1,350 water bottles that otherwise would have gone into the landfills. Staying with the theme of water, the ECC donated one month’s tzedakah money to the Jewish National Fund’s Reservoir Project. Last year they purchased a garden of trees in Israel, and this year they helped fund the reservoirs that water those trees. During Tu B’Shevat, the ECC donated money to plant a circle of trees in Israel’s Children’s Forest, in addition to planting a tree and 50 bulbs closer to home through Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project.
24 jcc circle
spring 2009