500 Toronto Teens Set to Serve Their Community on April 22nd

Five hundred Toronto-area teens will participate in an afternoon of community service and improvement projects on April 22, 2012 as they, along with 10,000 Jewish teens from around the world, take part in J‑Serve, the Global Day of Jewish Youth Service.

J‑Serve is the Jewish service component of Youth Service America’s annual Global Youth Service Day and also coincides with the fifth annual ChangeTheWorld - Ontario Youth Volunteer Challenge. The province’s three week challenge kicked off April 15^th in partnership with Volunteer Canada’s National Volunteer Week, Canada’s largest celebration of volunteers, volunteerism, and civic participation.

This year marks the third year in which Toronto-area teens will have the opportunity to participate in the international initiative, thanks to funding by UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the BBYO Panim Institute.

The Toronto project, hosted at the Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto’s Wallenberg Campus from 11:30am to 5pm, has been coordinated by BBYO in an effort to encourage community building and connections across religious and societal lines.

“When registering at Jserve.ca, teens are asked to choose one of 16 service opportunities across the city,” explains Kevin Goodman, Executive Director at BBYO’s Lake Ontario Region. “The site also enables parents and community members to register as project chaperones to see first-hand the power of five hundred young people eager to impact their world.”

J-Serve Toronto 2012’s service opportunities include:

· tree-planting and transformative cleanups at three City of Toronto parks;

· packaging books for a Frontier College literacy program;

· leading a thank-a-thon for the Jewish National Fund;

· joining DANI (which helps young adults with physical and/or cognitive challenges) participants for an Olympic day;

· preparing clothes for distribution by the New Circles Community Services clothing bank;

· participating in a political letter-writing workshop facilitated by the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, a social justice workshop facilitated by Free the Children’s youth programming department, or a social media focus group for Pencils for Kids;

· planting flowers and prepare rooftop gardens for the Kehilla Residential Programme;

· decorating knapsacks and educational tools for Save a Child’s Heart;

· providing childcare, crafts and face painting at UJA Federation’s Schwartz/Reisman Centre on the Lebovic Jewish Community Campus;

· organizing props in an offsite warehouse for the Teatron Toronto Jewish Theatre;

· assembling school supply kits for families in need and making sandwiches for distribution to Toronto’s homeless with Ve’ahavta, the Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee; and,

· working the phones at a Zareinu Educational Centre telethon to promote its 15th annual Moveathon.

Top 20 Under 40- Alex Enchin

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