July 30, 2004/Av 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 45
Tikkun olam for teens
JENNIFER GOLDBERG
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 Daniel Ference, David Uffens, Alex Shapiro, Ross Green and Charles Sacks fill bags of rice at a Seattle food bank as part of the BJE Care-a-van trip. Photo courtesy of Myra Shindler |
The Bureau of Jewish Education-sponsored Care-a-van program was held June 21-July 5 this year and took 47 teenagers on a bus trip through the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states.
The 2004 trip marked Care-a-van's third year in existence, and BJE Hebrew High principal Myra Shindler says the trip began as an offshoot of the school-year Hebrew High program.
"What we want to do is take some of what kids learn at Hebrew High and bring it to an intensive summer program where we go out on the road, visit different communities and do community service. Then we learn the Jewish mitzvot, the Jewish values and the virtues that go with doing community service," she says.
The trip began in Seattle, where the group completed a variety of community service projects, including a fund-raising car wash at Jewish Family & Children's Service and landscaping at the Red Cross.
Ian Strauss, a 15-year-old Cactus Shadows High School sophomore, says the most meaningful part of the trip was a visit the group made to a Boys' and Girls' Club in Spokane, Wash.
"While I was there, I had the chance to talk to the director of the club, and he said that it was amazing because he'd never seen some of those boys and girls smile before, but they were smiling that day," he says. "It made me feel good that I was a part of that."
In Rock Springs, Wyo., the teens helped clean a stretch of road through the Adopt-a-Highway program. The National Guard soldiers that normally cleaned the area is currently stationed in Iraq, and when a local National Guard colonel heard of the teens' contribution, he presented them with a medal.
Other community service projects included reading books at a day care center in Grand Junction, Colo.; volunteering at an animal shelter in Cheyenne, Wyo.; and holding a casino day at a Jewish home for the elderly in Denver.
In addition to the community service, the teens participated in fun activities like whitewater rafting and amusement park trips, took part in Jewish rituals and discussions on Jewish topics and had the opportunity to meet other local Jewish teens.
Allison Spitz, a 15-year-old junior at Central High School, says, "My favorite part of the trip this year was definitely meeting all the new kids. It was really fun making a whole bunch of new friends."
Strauss says the Care-a-van trip "makes you proud and happy to know that you can go somewhere where people accept you just for who you are. It makes who you are as a Jew stronger, because you feel like you don't have anything to worry about. It's a trip like no other."