Friday, June 15, 2007

This week's episode of the "Find the Dining Room Table Game" is brought to you by Hannah's Bat Mitzvah Chessed Project

Hannah is 11 years old. We've just begun a chessed project as part of the bat mitzvah year's activities.

We contacted the director of a nearby children's trauma clinic. A significant number of the children served by her clinic are from abusive or neglectful situations. Many are in foster homes. Others are with their families, but the arrangements are under supervision.

We asked her what they need. She told us that a number of her client children don't have basic personal care items of their own. For whatever reason.

Hannah's chessed project is to make personal care baskets for these children.

We have been assembling personal care items for the past six weeks. We are making 4 dozen baskets, aimed for boys and girls (the baskets are gendered, at the trauma clinic director's request) aged 4-8 years old.

Assembly began last night. We were out late, delivering stuff to the school for various events. By the time we came home, the girls were too tired to start. Jonathan set up the baskets and helped streamline the process for today's assembly line.

This is how our dining room table looked this morning:
Everyone was pressed into service. Abigail and Emily were very helpful. Gretta, not so much.



One of the finished baskets:
This is what my dining room table looked like at 4 this afternoon. Oy!

Wish me luck at digging out. We need the table for dinner tonight!

(We hope to deliver the baskets early next week.)

10 comments, so far. Add yours now!

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Anonymous said...

what an amazing project! those kits will be such a blessing for those kids. did you buy all the baskets and their contents at once? *faints from the expense*

Fern @ Life on the Balcony said...

What a nice chessed project! I still remember what I did: polish all the shul's silver. Silver Torah breast plates, silver candle sticks, silver kiddish cups, etc, etc. It was greatly needed, but I don't think it was as meaningful as your daughter's project. Kol hakavod!

Juggling Frogs said...

PLEASE NOTE:

Someone SPAMmed this post with a bunch of "trackback" links to this post, with affiliate links to random personal care products. Those were not the products we used.

We had nothing to do with those links that appeared at the bottom of this post.

I've turned of the links to this post.

Juggling Frogs said...

Fern,

Wow! What a great idea. That's a lot of silver polishing! I think polishing the shul's silver is a fantastic project. I bet you felt ownership in the shul and the community in a different way, every shabbat thereafter.

And this is something done totally by the bat mitzvah girl, giving her own energy and time.

I don't know if our shul does this, but I'm going to suggest it.

What a great idea. (Almost as good as Google Spellcheck! LOL!)

Juggling Frogs said...

Anonymous,

We spread the expense over the last six weeks, with LOTS of comparison shopping. It was a big project.

I kept imagining a whole group of pajama-clad children standing in a group waiting for us to finish, before they could brush their teeth and go to bed...

Jeanne Tuthill said...

What a fabulous project! And so meaningful to those kids!!

I don't know the appropriate thing to say for a Bat Mitzvah so I'll just say "CONGRATS!"

crunchygranolamom said...

Yowzer! That's very impressive! (in a very "YOU" sort of way). Umm, she's only doing this once before her bat miztvah next Spring, right????

Juggling Frogs said...

Jeanne,

"Congrats" is great; we'll take that, for sure! Thank you!

CrunchyGranolaMom,

ONLY ONCE for this kid, I promise! We're going to need some cash left over to feed some people, right?

Yes, her bat mitzvah is in March. I just wanted the first dollars spent to be the chessed project dollars. I have a whole soapbox-full of reasons. Will attempt to explain in a post, soon, I hope.

All the best,
CLKL

Ayelet said...

Off topic: Your kids have such pretty names.

Anonymous said...

that is a wonderful idea, and much more useful than embroidered felt pillows and such that some prepare for children in hospitals.

If you liked this article, congratulations! You have great taste. Please brew yourself a cup of coffee.
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