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A Day in the Field for Kids
May 04, 2001Comments (0) | Add | E-mail this to a friendOn a warm spring afternoon, there's picking to be done in the fields. With the sun beating down on their backs, college and high school students carry large green bags, picking the last of the collard greens before tilling. They are surprised at the abundance of food leftover, not used, ready to rot in the field.
But not today.
Today these students from Hillel at the University of Marland College Park and Richard Adelman Shalom BBYO are harvesting this food for the needy, an ancient Jewish tradition, as part of Hillel's first Yom Yeladim: A Day in Service of Children.
The unique partnership between the university students and high school special needs BBYO members, Sunday, April 22, was held in conjunction with Youth Service Amerca's National Youth Service Day.
National Youth Service Day (NYSD) is the largest service event in the world, engaging millions of young Americans and focusing national attention on the leadership of young people, said Mallory Barg, Hillel's Tzedek Fellow. "It's is also an opportunity to recruit the next generation of volunteers while promoting the benefits of youth service to the American public."
The group of ten Maryland students and ten BBYOers along with their parents worked at the Washington Area Gleaning Network, picking collard greens and packaging yams.
Michelle Maslov, a UMD Hillel activist and advisor for the BBYO group, hopes that this will be the first of many joint ventures between the two groups. Maslov thought that bringing the two groups together would be beneficial for both sides. "I love having the Hillel students working with the BBYO kids," she explained of Shalom BBYO, which serves 14-19 year old special needs students in the greater-Washington area. "It's more than just serving, it's a direct way of help and motivates the [BBYO] kids, and without us the food would actually be thrown away."
With the help of the Shalom BBYO members, in one Sunday afternoon, the group was able to collect over 20 large bags of collard greens and to separate several crate of yams. At the end of the day, the group discussed what it means to make a difference, and about other programs they would like to do together.
University students included both those from Hillel and those in a unique education and career-planning course at UMD requiring completion of two community service projects per semester.
"This project allowed everyone to be active," said sophomore Adee Telem. "It's fun and its helps everyone."
In addition to UMD College Park Hillel, nine other campuses received Yom Yeladim grants, supported by the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Tzedek Hillel. Programs included a youth health and safety fair at University of Pennsylvania Hillel, an Ethiopian Jewry awareness project at several New Jersey schools and the launch of a Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters program at Hillel of Silicon Valley.
"It's exciting to see such a diverse array of programs," said Barg. "We look forward to expanding the Yom Yeladim initiative in coming years."
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