|
|
May 16, 2003/Iyar 14 5763, Vol. 55, No. 38
Tzedakah collective
Students solicit donations for worthy causes
BETH OLSON
Staff Writer
Alex Cohen, a seventh-grade student at Temple Emanuel's religious school, works her booth to encourage donations to her cause at the Tzedakah Collective.
Photo by Susan Schanerman
|
Seventh-grade students at Temple Emanuel are doing more than studying Torah during the year of their bar or bat mitzvah. They recently participated in the Tzedakah Collective, a project through which they research a charity, create a presentation and then collect donations.
"I think the bar mitzvah year is often a year of being self-centered and focused on their party and their own achievement and I like this project because it gets them to think outside themselves and think about doing something for someone else," says Susan Schanerman, education director at Temple Emanuel.
The students worked alone or in pairs to create a presentation about the charity of their choice. A congregant who works in the advertising industry came to the class and taught the students a lesson in marketing and organization, creating a display and graphic design. The students researched their charities online, and used the information to create tri-fold displays and 20-30 second presentations.
This year's Tzedakah Collective took place on May 4. Religious school students used the money they collected for tzedakah during the year to buy chips, and parents and congregants also purchased chips and then visited the seventh-graders' displays, listened to their presentations and donated to the causes.
"(The Tzedakah Collective) gives the younger children an opportunity to actually spend their tzedakah money rather than just having a teacher or religious school principal write a check to a organization," explains Schanerman.
Schanerman says she created the Tzedakah Collective program after hearing a presentation about a similar program being done in Boston. In its second year, Schanerman has found the program to be very beneficial to the students.
"It introduces them to an organization they didn't know about and also gives them some skills in how to market and how to raise money and how to present a cause so people will want to donate to it," she explains.
The 40 students in the seventh-grade class raised $1,250 for their causes at this year's event. Organizations that benefited ranged from Jewish and Israeli charities such as Mazon, Magen David Adom and the Jewish Braille Institute of America to causes benefiting children, animals and medical research.
|
