Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday February 1, 2008

South Bay Mitzvah Day succeeds despite rain

by stacey palevsky
staff writer

More than 200 people turned out to volunteer for the first Mitzvah Day coordinated by the Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto.

Many volunteers planted trees and cleaned coastlines, ignoring the rain that fell intermittently on Martin Luther King Day, Jan. 21.

JCC staff said the big attendance indicated demand for such an event, and coordinators plan to hold another Mitzvah Day next year.

“It was an exciting atmosphere of people helping other people,” said Jerry Brodkey of Los Altos, who volunteered with his son David, 9, and daughter Anna Maria, 7.

Brodkey said he was most impressed that the volunteer opportunities were age-appropriate — his children made cards and sock puppets for children at Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

Sharon and Seth Leslie also turned out with their children, ages 2 and 5.

“I know it seems young, but we feel like it’s good to start early, that it’s not just about doing things for ourselves, but about doing things for other people,” Sharon Leslie said.

Mimi Sells, JCC marketing and communications director, said she was thrilled to see so many families participating. “The whole point was to bring families together around community service.”

Projects ranged from writing letters to hospital patients and Israeli and American soldiers, to visiting residents at a senior center. Volunteers also helped build homes for low-income individuals, restore bluffs at Half Moon Bay and rolled up their sleeves for other hands-on projects.

Volunteers first met at Kehillah Jewish High School to register, shmooze and eat breakfast, then broke up into smaller volunteer groups.

For Brodkey, though, it wasn’t just about the mitzvah, but about recognizing multiculturalism. His daughter Anna Maria was born in Guatemala and has Mayan ancestry.

“We have a blended family,” he said, “and it’s important to us to look for opportunities to promote people getting along with each other no matter their background or skin color.”

Mitzvah Day “was a wonderful opportunity to reinforce Dr. King’s message, and see some of the challenges that still exist.”

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.