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Social Action
Temple Sinai
recognizes "communities" of many sizes in its community service
activities. Through our Social Action Committee, many local and
service projects are initiated and supported. It is also the
committee's goal to increase awareness of relevant social issues among
our membership, as well as to gain widespread participation in events.
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About the Social Action Committee |
The Temple Sinai Social
Action Committee welcomes all who would be interested in joining our
group, or who would like to propose any new ideas to benefit the
community. Please contact our committee chairman,
Sherry Maltese,
for any information.
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Volunteers are Needed!
The Social Action
Committee is also compiling a list of volunteers for activities
throughout the year. We need your help and good ideas!
Call Carol Benjamin at the Temple Office 860-561-1055 or e-mail
social_action@sinaict.org |
A Temple-wide knitting project, Knitzvah,
needs knitters of all skill levels from complete beginners to
experts. Teachers and supplies will be provided. The project is
working to make baby hats and blankets, helmet liners for American and
Israeli soldiers, and simple squares to be made into blankets for a
needy Indian reservation. The project is holding drop-in sessions periodically.
Check the Bulletin and calendar for dates. See the flyer in the
January
Bulletin for more information. You can get even more
information, including patterns, on our discussion forums (BBS). You'll find a
dedicated discussion forum here.
 
Knitzvah Baby Hats at Connecticut Children's Medical
Center
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Help a child learn
to READ!
The Greater Hartford Jewish Coalition for Literacy is now
preparing for its seventh year. Just one half hour per week,
reading with one child (pre-school through third grade, as you
prefer) can make a world of difference, and its fun! If you
can’t commit for every week, substitute tutors are also needed.
Currently 174 reading mentors and substitutes are volunteering
at ten schools in five towns. If you have not yet signed on and
want to do so, please call the Hartford Jewish Coalition for
Literacy at 860-236-7323 or email
hjcl@jewishhartford.org.
Ken Speyer of our Social Action Committee will
coordinate for Temple Sinai. He can be reached at 860-229-1075.
This is a program of the Jewish Community
Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford. |
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High Holy Days Food Drive |
Wilt thou
call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is this not the
fast I have chosen? ... Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and
that thou bring the poor that are cast out into thy house?
—
Isaiah 58:5,7 read during Yom Kippur
service
Providing food for our hungry neighbors
is an important and meaningful part of our High Holiday observance,
and an annual tradition at Temple Sinai. In past years Temple Sinai
has helped Foodshare serve 100,000 of our neighbors, including 40,000
children. This year you contributed $10,700, enough to feed 357 people
for a month; and you donated almost 1,800 pounds of
food.
Particular thanks go to those who
helped out in special ways:
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Carol Benjamin
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Scott, Noah, and Raffi Boden
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Eric, Robin, Jacob, Laura, and Samantha
Cohen
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David Elovich
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Aleyna Feinberg and Ellen Thomson
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Harriet Feldlaufer and David Reuman
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Judy Lederer and Becky Levine
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Evan Pawlak and Jan Roth
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Amy, David, Eliza, and Lillie Pinette
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Lee and Natalie Pollock
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Joan Skydel
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Ann and David Speyer
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Joyce Sturm
A very special thank you goes to Bob
Pearlman and Nationwide Moving and Storage, who again provided the
moving van and driver to transport the food. Another special thank you
goes to Stop & Shop of Newington, which again donated the shopping
bags and lent the shopping carts used in the collection.
Thank you for your participation in
this mitzvah.
For more information about FoodShare,
visit
www.foodshare.org.
b'Shalom,
Ken Speyer, Social Action Committee
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Tikkun Olam:
Repairing the World
Habitat Haverim is the local Jewish affiliate of
Habitat for Humanity. The
Temple Sinai Social Action Committee supports the local
community efforts by supplying about twenty volunteers to help
build houses for the needy.
Here’s a very tangible and
satisfying way to fulfill this fundamental principle of Judaism.
Join others from the community in a Habitat Haverim project. Be
part of building a home for a committed, but less fortunate
family. No experience necessary! Volunteers must be 14 or older.
Guaranteed to give you a sense of satisfaction.
Call
Katie Light at 860-231-6435 or e-mail
klight@jewishhartford.org |
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Smalley Elementary School Project |
Temple Sinai,
through the Social Action Committee, has "adopted" Smalley Academy, a
public elementary school serving inner-city children in New Britain. A
large quantity of clothing, for both winter and summer, was donated
from the annual Rummage Sale conducted by the Sisterhood, for
distribution to students at the school. Collection drives have
contributed winter outerwear: sweaters, coats, hats, gloves and
scarves. New stuffed animals were donated by the Chai Club from their
Hanukkah party.
A book drive also contributed to the school library.
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The 2010 Walk against Hunger was an even
bigger
success than last year's. Our team raised over twice as much as
last year.
Contact
social_action@sinaict.org
to join our team for next year. For more
information about the Walk against Hunger, go to
Foodshare's web site. |
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The Social
Action Committee serves meals at Mercy Housing in Hartford on
several dates through out the year. Check the
Calendar for updates.
We need
your help with shopping, food preparation and/or serving (no
clean ups!) No experience is necessary and you are invited to
stay for dinner. If you can help us on any of the following
Sundays, please contact the Temple office at 562-1055, or send
e-mail to
social_action@sinaict.org.
Volunteers
from Temple Sinai also participate in a program where we
purchase food, cook and serve meals to residents of homeless
shelters in the Greater Hartford Area, including Saint Elizabeth
House and Salvation Army shelters.
Additional
volunteers are always welcome. Please contact
social_action@sinaict.org
if you are interested in helping out in any way. |
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Mitzvah Day is a
nationwide event, in May, to allow people to get involved with
charitable causes. Every year Temple Sinai participates in many
separate activities to support this effort. These include things such
as collecting food for Foodshare, making touch books for blind pre-schoolers,
helping at soup kitchens, and running activities at a convalescent
home. We anticipate continuing to support these community activities.
You can see photos from last year's Mitzvah Day
and last year's Walk against Hunger now, and
we hope to have the 2010 pictures up soon.
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Mazon
- Hunger in America |
The following
is printed from the Mazon Homepage
Hunger In
America
Every day
throughout the world 40,000 people, mostly children, die of hunger or
diseases related to hunger - nearly 15 million deaths every year.
In America, a
land of unprecedented abundance, millions - many of them children -
begin their day hungry just as they went to bed hungry the night
before.
A teacher in
Minnesota asked his class: `How many of you ate breakfast this
morning?' As he expected, only a few children raised their hands. So
he continued, `How many of you skipped breakfast this morning because
you don't like breakfast?' Lots of hands went up. `And how many of you
skipped breakfast because you didn't have time for it?' Many other
hands went up. He was pretty sure by then why the remaining children
hadn't eaten, but he didn't want to ask them about being poor, so he
asked, `How many of you skipped breakfast because your family doesn't
usually eat breakfast?' A few more hands were raised. Finally he
noticed a small boy in the middle of the classroom, whose hand had not
gone up. Thinking the boy hadn't understood, he asked, `And why didn't
you eat breakfast this morning?' The boy replied, his face serious:
`It wasn't my turn.'
In America,
hungry children take turns eating breakfast. Millions of elderly
people choose each month between paying their heating bill or buying
groceries. Growing numbers of unemployed, underemployed and physically
and mentally disadvantaged people go for days without eating a hot
meal. While no one is sure exactly how many Americans suffer from
hunger, the number unquestionably is in the millions. Hunger has been
documented authoritatively in all 50 states. Despite a network of
government and private food-assistance programs that address this
scandal in our land of plenty, hunger in America shows no signs of
diminishing.
It is impossible
to talk about hunger without talking about poverty: More than 39
million Americans are poor, most of them children. In fact, the United
States has the highest child poverty rate of any industrialized
nation: One in every five American children is poor.
Elderly Americans
also face particular risk: A study by the Urban Institute reveals that
at least 2.5 million elderly people experience food insecurity each
month, meaning that they worry about where their next meal will come
from. Millions more Americans of all ages, in urban, rural and
suburban settings, know the pain of hunger.
Hunger strikes
particularly hard at children. An estimated 14 million children in
America or hungry or at the very edge of hunger, because their
families lack the money to buy sufficient food.
Despite these
alarming numbers, the problem of hunger is less visible here than in
impoverished parts of the world. Hungry children in America rarely die
of starvation; instead, they tend to suffer from chronic malnutrition
or undernutrition, they are listless and tired, can't pay attention in
school, miss more days of school and suffer from more childhood
illnesses than their non-hungry counterparts. Childhood hunger can
cause lasting impairments that prevent children from growing up to be
productive members of society.
Through MAZON,
you can help make a difference. Our grantmaking reflects the belief
that hunger must be confronted on all levels: by feeding people,
certainly, but also by supporting programs working for effective
long-term solutions to hunger, those working to improve the reach and
effectiveness of government food assistance programs, and those
providing the kinds of effective counseling, assistance and training
that increase the self- reliance of low-income people. These
programs and approaches have a far broader and longer-lasting impact
on hunger than simply distributing food through charities.
While we
acknowledge the value of support for local programs, we urge our
supporters to join MAZON in providing food, help and hope to hungry
people everywhere. Doing so fulfills the biblical admonition to
`help the stranger,' wherever he or she may be.
For information
about how to support MAZON, click on
`How You Can Help.' To learn more about our grantmaking, click
on
'MAZON's
Grantmaking.'
Send e-mail to Mazon
Platform
and browser independent,
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HTML attempted by Mazon volunteer
Our "Box Project"
involves putting together a box each month of food and other supplies
that would be useful to a needy family.
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Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism |
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism
http://www.rac.org
The Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism is the Washington office of the Union
of American Hebrew Congregations and the Central Conference of
American Rabbis, representing 1.5 million Reform Jews and 1,700 Reform
rabbis in over 900 congregations throughout North America. The Center
represents the Reform Jewish Movement to the Congress and to the
Administration; develops extensive legislative and programmatic social
action materials for the Reform Movement; and trains nearly 2,000
Jewish adults, youth, rabbinic and lay leaders each year in social
justice work. The RAC works under the auspices of the Commission on
Social Action of Reform Judaism (CSA), the social justice
policy-making body of the Reform Movement
To learn more visit the
website for the Religious
Action Center of Reform Judaism. |
