Last Sunday, Federation volunteers participated in the fourth Community Service Day of 2013! Wrapping up the Jewish year on a high note, over 130 of us participated in five different projects across the city as a part of this special day of service.
Volunteers at Santa Monica Beach, including recent Birthright participants, picked up over 2,000 pieces of trash from the sand, especially those small items that often get overlooked but still pose a danger to ocean life and our environment. This was the second of our Federation’s three volunteer beach clean-ups this year as part of Heal the Bay’s Adopt-A-Beach program.
In the Pico-Union neighborhood, our Young Adults of Los Angeles (YALA) volunteers partnered with Helping Young People Excel (HYPE) and conducted mock interviews with 33 underserved middle school students. These interviews helped the students practice for when they will participate in real interviews to gain admittance into private high schools that have excellent college admission rates.
Over at the Aviva Center, we participated in arts and crafts projects, manicures, and gardening with 22 at-risk teenage girls living at the facility. The activities were therapeutic; so much so that three of the girls felt comfortable enough to share about how each one of them had a mother who had passed away. Our volunteers had helped to create an environment of warmth, fun and support.
At Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, we assembled school supply kits for 278 underserved children to help prepare them for the school year. Volunteers consisted of both adults and children, which served as a valuable opportunity to learn about the value of chesed (kindness) and tzedakah (justice).
Finally, at The Jewish Federation Valley Alliance, volunteers participated in several service projects benefiting local organizations. Projects included creating care packages for children benefiting from services at The Jewish Family Violence Project. Joined by children and parents in our community, we prepared care packages, made cards for the Los Angeles Jewish Home, and packed bags with apples and honey for senior citizen members of the Chabad of the Conejo’s Sunshine Club.
Whether it was helping children to succeed academically and in their personal lives, making sure that the physical world we live in is left a healthier one for our children, or generally performing deeds of kindness, our dedicated Federation volunteers helped to make Los Angeles a better place for so many people! See below for photos of our volunteers working hard and giving back.
We hope to see you at our next community service program, Tour de Summer Camps, on October 27. Together, we will ride bicycles to raise money for Jewish children so that they can afford to go to Jewish summer camp! Click here for more information.
To be placed on our volunteer e-mail list, please fill out our short volunteer sign-up form. And don’t forget to check us out on Facebook!
