http://jewishvoiceandopinion.com
January 2012/Tevet 5772
The Jewish Voice and Opinion
Page - 21
A Summer Chesed Programs Fair and the Website and Creator behind It Are a Hit Early last month, before the Chanukah
season swung into a full-court press, AllChesed.com, a free website which serves as a one-stop resource for chesed projects and volunteer opportunities primarily in the Northern New Jersey Jewish community, gave teenagers the chance to consider the most important gift they can offer to a non-profit organization: time and effort. AllChesed’s first Summer Chesed Programs Fair, held for two hours at Teaneck’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, featured many different ways for teenagers to spend valuable time volunteering during the school vacation. “There are an abundant array of programs for teens to choose to volunteer for, depending on their areas of interest. These experiences tend to leave a lasting impression on both the volunteers and those they are helping. There is a program for everyone and the best part is that every volunteer is appreciated,” said Ariella Steinreich, a community activist who created AllChesed.com last October. Ms. Steinreich saw the fair as a way to guide teenagers who want to volunteer but need to know for whom, when, where, and how to perform acts of kindness. “Each program had its own niche with the hopes that the right individuals would connect with the right group,” she said. For the 22-year-old Teaneck resident, AllChesed.com is merely a high-tech extension of what she was doing anyway: helping connect people—adults and teenagers—with non-profit chesed organizations and volunteer opportunities. Variety of Programs To present themselves to potential high school volunteers and their families, the organizations that participated in the Summer Chesed Programs Fair included local Jewish as well as secular groups, such as CareOne at Teaneck, Jewish Family Services, and Englewood Hospital. Other organizations represented at the fair allow teens to visit Israel while engaged in chesed projects. For example, Yad B’Yad (Hand in Hand), a project run by the Orthodox Union and its Yachad program, brings high school students and Yachad members (adults and teens with special-needs) to Israel for the summer.
The program allows all participants to experience the trip together. Another OU affiliate, the National Council of Synagogue Youth (NCSY), through its GIVE (Girls Israel Volunteer Experience) program, allows high school girls to experience hands-on Judaism while helping those in need in Israel. Students spend time in soup kitchens, participate in medical-clowning programs, and may even paint kindergartens in Israeli underprivileged communities. When not engaged in chesed activities,
GIVE participants visit major sites throughout Israel, including spending Shabbat in Tzfat, boating on the Kinneret, hiking in the Judean desert and the Golan, and floating in the Dead Sea. “Through giving back, the girls are empowered to change the world around them by recognizing the value of the smallest act of kindness towards others,” said Ms. Steinreich. Another fair participant, Bet Elazraki, an EMUNAH children’s home in Netanya,
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