Mitzvah Projects Library

Mitzvah Projects Done by Beth El Families

A Mitzvah Project is a fun way to engage people of all ages in some of the most important values of Judaism – repairing the world (tikkun olam) and compassion for others (v’ahavta l'rayecha kamocha). Here is a list of some of the type of projects Beth El families have done in the past. This is meant to inspire you to think about the different types of projects you can do. We highly recommend that a Mitzvah Project be incorporated into a family’s Bar/Bat mitzvah experience and far beyond.

A project can be done by an individual or a group of people. It can be a single act or preferably a recurring experience. To identify specific organizations to partner with, look at Beth El’s list of Community Partners.

Take your pet to visit one of the residences of Jewish Foundation for Group Homes www.jfgh.org (301-984-3839)

Have your family participate in something other than the class project during Beth El’s Fall Mitzvah Day. Look at one of the many suggested offerings and do that mitzvah on some other date.

Contact Merilee Ansell who created Books, Bears, and Bonnets. She makes gift boxes which include a book, bear, cap, bookmark, and greeting card given to cancer patients at local hospitals. You can have a book drive to get the books she needs and/or make book marks and get well cards for her boxes. http://www.booksbearsbonnets.org/

Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) http://www.capitalareafoodbank.org/– contact Ron Wise volunteer coordinator Ron Wise at (202) 526-5344 ext.286, wiser@cfoodbank.org

Help sort food at the CAFB, the CAFB often needs people to help at local supermarkets during their various drives. The local food bank Manna has similar opportunities.

Click on this website everyday - www.thehungersite.org.

Participate in a walk-a-thon, bike-a-thon, 5K to raise money for a good cause. Check out www.mcrrc.org for some of the many events in Montgomery County

Take up a collection of personal hygiene items. Call local hotels, if you tell them what you’re doing they may give you a whole box of shampoo! Bring them to a local shelter.

Become politically active - Find out who is running for senate in Maryland and stuff envelopes for the candidate you like, print out lots of voter registration forms and pass them out to everyone you know

Do a research project on an endangered species-make a poster display to teach people about it. Hold a bake sale to raise funds for an organization that helps save endangered species.

Find out more about how slavery and injustice still take place. Take action-send an e-mail to the offending government. Relevant websites: www.antislavery.org; www.kulanu.org; www.amnesty.org

On the first and third Sundays of every month during the school year, Beth El eighth graders make 50 brown bag lunches for the clients who come to the dinner program at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Pearl Street. No one makes these lunches on the second, fourth, or fifth Sundays.

Making activity boxes for Children’s Hospital. Activity boxes are provided to patients to help pass the time while in the hospital. A "busy box" that contains crayons, bubbles, coloring books, cards, books, word puzzles, small games, and pencils helps patients fight boredom. The activity boxes can be tailored to any age group (from toddlers to teens) and are especially welcome in isolation rooms, where the kids have very little available to them during the long days of an inpatient stay. http://www.dcchildrens.com/

N.I.H. Children’s Inn – on the fourth Sunday of every month Beth El makes dinner for about fifty families at Children’s Inn to serve dinner one needs to be sixteen, but to make dinner one can be any age. Contact Sherri Cafritz (sldcafritz@aol.com) tell her you’d like to make dessert for families bring their children to NIH for treatment. While you’re at it make fifty mail box treats. This mailbox program brings many moments of joy and happiness to children and their siblings. Upon arrival at The Inn, each child is given their own mailbox to receive not only mail, but also special gifts. During the child's stay, a special treasure is placed in the child's mailbox each day. These items can be many different things -- each one lifting spirits, bringing smiles, laughter or a friendly surprise.

The clergy visit people who are sick in the hospital. Ask them if there is something you could prepare that they could take with them on hospital visits, it could have a holiday connection (buy small sticks of honey and small apples for them to deliver with a hand written card from you for Rosh Hashanah)

Ask for the names of some of the elderly people at Beth El. Call and find out if you can come rake their leaves or wash their windows.

Contact the Humane Society-see what they need. Collect what they need-in the past their needs have included old blankets, coupons for dog food, volunteer dog walkers.

A good resource for even more ideas -- www.kidscare.org or the Volunteer Center for Montgomery County http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/

Have a private screening of the 2011 Academy Award-winning documentary Strangers No More for family and friends and choose a project to support with the money raised. The documentary features children from the Tel Aviv Yafo Foundation’s flagship school acclimating to life in Israel after fleeing poverty, political adversity and genocide. Sample projects include providing meals or sports equipment for the school featured in Strangers No More, building a computer center at a low-income elementary school, purchasing technological equipment for blind children, supporting an after-school program for children at risk, providing new equipment for infants and toddlers with muscular, sight, hearing and mental disabilities, and purchasing musical instruments for musically-gifted underprivileged students. Contact Nanci Sundel at Nanci@telavivfoundation.org or 301-684-3153.