Get ready to lend a hand

There is still some time to volunteer for Mitzvah Day.

Mitzvah Day is fast approaching. On Sunday, March 17, the students of Vancouver Talmud Torah high school, their teachers, friends and families, together with the Ohel Ya'akov Community Kollel and the Kehila Society of Richmond, will work side by side to demonstrate the responsibility and importance of giving to the community.

The first annual Mitzvah Day was in 1998. By 1999, the Young Adult Division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver joined in the event and more than 300 volunteers were involved, ready to do any job. In light of the tragedy of Sept. 11, this year's Mitzvah Day takes on added significance. The list of mitzvot that will be performed includes:

• visiting three nursing homes (Saint Jude, Little Mountain and the Louis Brier), socializing with the elders, taking them for a walk and doing some maintenance work around the homes,
• visiting people in various hospitals,
• hosting, with the co-operation of the Jewish Family Service Agency, a lunch for newcomers to the Lower Mainland, including activities for children,
• Pesach clean up in the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library and at Yaffa House,
• helping to set up a model seder for Holocaust survivors,
• maintenance work at the Canucks Place (home for children with cancer),
• maintenance work and socializing with patients of the Cancer Lodge,
• selling daffodils for the Cancer Society,
• cleaning up Jericho beach and the Richmond dike,
• car washes (to raise money for the Friendship Circle, which is explained below),
• collecting Jewish National Fund blue boxes from homes,
• delivering meals to lonely elders, with the co-operation of the JFSA, and
• card-making for children in hospitals.

Each mitzvah activity will be captained by a student and an adult. They will be responsible for all of the details: recruitment, co-ordination of volunteers, rides and more. At the end of the day, at 3 p.m., all of the volunteers will gather at Talmud Torah for food, music and to exchange stories.

In other mitzvah-related activities, every student from Talmud Torah and the Vancouver Hebrew Academy received a tzedakah box last month and children are asked to return the boxes on March 15. A prize will be awarded to the student who hands in the fullest box. All money raised will go to a project in-the-making called the Friendship Circle, a drop-in centre for children with special needs. Once this centre is up and running, it is hoped that the high school students will volunteer there on a regular basis.

As well, children from the community are invited to enter a poem/story contest. The deadline for submissions is March 1 and the three best ones will receive a cash prize and all material will be published in a book to be sold in the community.

On March 15, children in the Jewish schools will receive two mini-challahs and two candles to start the Shabbat of mitzvah with the special blessings. At all of the large Jewish organizations, there are three boxes into which people can put a donation of toys for family services, towels for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and/or eyeglasses for developing countries.

Mitzvah Day is co-sponsored by the Jewish Western Bulletin, Burton Moldings, Cape Construction, Chagall's Creative Cuisine, the Diamond Foundation and Rabbi Yosef Wosk and family. If you want to volunteer and be a part of this important community event, there will be a registration form in the next issue of the Bulletin or register online at www.mitzvahday.ca.

- Courtesy of Talmud Torah

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