Meaningful Jewish Experiences with Hillel House

By Lori on 02/17/2011 @ 12:56 PM

When I first started college at the University of South Florida in Tampa, my grandmother would call me every Friday afternoon to wish me a Shabbat Shalom. Before I hung up the phone with her she would always remind me to “Go over to the Hillel House and have a Jewish experience.” Looking back now, over 10 years later, my Grammy had it right; Hillel is a great place for college students to go when looking for a meaningful Jewish experience.

For the last two years, the Jewish Volunteer Center has been assisting Hillel in providing Jewish experiences to college students on Alternative Winter and Spring Break. Hillel has brought over 500 Jewish college students to Miami from around the country, engaging them in meaningful hands-on service opportunities in our community.

As the rain came down, volunteers dug up the soil creating beds in which to plant vegetables. We planted calalou and lettuce and in just a short 6 weeks, they will be ready for harvest and will feed the hungry in ourcommunity. I was so impressed that our hard working volunteers continued to give back to our community even as the weather turned on us and gave us a shower. However, for the vegetables we were planting, today could not have been a more perfect day.

On the first day of each trip that Hillel has brought to Miami, students and staff members have given back to our Jewish community. In the morning, busses pulled up to the Federation building and 100 Jewish college students took a seat in our board room. They learned from Jeff Levin, Chief Development Officer, and Michelle Labgold, Chief Planning Officer, about our Jewish needs and the annual campaign. Following this opening to their day, they headed out to our agencies to help assist with some of our pressing needs by giving a warm smile and lending a hand.

Hillel provided Alternative Break programs three times this year in Miami. The Jewish Volunteer Center set up the following programs in which these students participated in during their first day of a week-long service trip:

• Visiting residents at Miami Jewish Health Systems
• Serving meals at the Jewish Community Services (JCS) meal site
• Visiting with senior citizens at the JCS Senior Center
• Visiting patients at Miami Heart Institute with the Federation Chaplaincy Program

Students and staff found these volunteer experiences in a Jewish setting to be a wonderful opening to their week of Tikkun Olam in Miami. Throughout the rest of the week, students were engaged in service with City Year, a national organization which promotes change through service in local school systems. Participants painted murals in schools and tutored children in the after school program or at the Overtown Youth Center.

My hope is that Hillel will continue to engage students in these wonderful hands-on, immersive volunteer experiences. These types of programs have shown to be a major player in shaping the Jewish identity of our next generation. Today, if my grandmother were here to see the work we do at the Jewish Volunteer Center, I think she would say, “Thank G-d, you finally listened to me and experienced something great with Hillel.”