Caleb Bromberg
On my community service project: My community service project involves teaching a one semester course called "Genesis as Literature." In the class, we will examine the book of Genesis as if it were any other piece of non-religious literature. Having a foundation in the bible, especially Genesis, is crucial to understand nearly all other literature.
Alyssa Connors
My community service project is to create a safe and open place for young teenagers to learn about gender roles, homophobia, and the gay community through activities and workshops. Participants will look at what assumptions we make, what language we use, and what actions we can take to address prejudice and stereotypes relating to gay/straight issues. We will reflect on how our words and actions affect those around us and ourselves. I will be bringing these workshops to various youth groups, where teens will have the opportunity to learn about and discuss important issues that are not often brought up in a structured yet open setting.
Liza Davis-Brown
My goal is to help inner-city kids get involved in a safe organized activity and encourage a healthy lifestyle. To do this, community service project is designed to bring sports equipment to kids that do not have any by donating it to an organization. I will fundraise and collect used sports equipment. After I have collected all the sports equipment, I will spend a few weekends and play various sports games with them!
Liat Deener-Chodirker
For my community service project for Diller I am going to be making a website about teenage homelessness. I feel very passionate about this cause and believe that no one, especially no young person, should have to live without such a basic necessity. While researching this cause, I found that it is extremely difficult to find a lot of information on it. So I thought, why not start with making a website? The website will have a lot of information on the cause, a list of resources available to this population, and ways to get involved. I also hope to interview people who are or have been homeless in their teenage years and put that on the website to make it more personal. Over time as my knowledge expands and this website grows and improves, I plan on having events to raise advocacy and help for teenagers who are homeless.
Noah “Honey” Dines
For my project I would like to start a garden at my temple, to provide fresh food for members of my temple. This will bring people together and the outcome will be more exciting than the usual oneg fair of overcooked vegetables. As is the mandate from the torah, a figurative four corners will be donated to the poor. Instead of canned vegetables, people in need will be able to receive fresh, locally grown produce. I hope to expand this program to more temple, and in the long run hope to be able to convince temples that are being built to create a roof system suitable for a garden.
Hannah Feinberg
For my community service project, I'm going to run book drives within various communities I am connected to such as my school and temple. I am starting this summer at Fernwood Cove, the summer camp in Maine I will be working at. I will deliver the books to under-funded schools in the Boston area.
Gregory Feinstein
My project is about educating teenagers about bullying through live, staged, scenes that portray bullying in real-life in person examples. It then uses examples show cyber-bullying situations in real life, and how one can best avoid or defuse them, and what measures a person should take if they are a victim or a bystander.
Lizi Fine
For my community service project I will be setting up a presentation for my school to explain what the ABA program is. I hope it will educate students at my school about who is in the program, what it is, and how it works. I am also planning on having students hang out and get to know the students in the ABA classes so that the ABA kids will have many friends in and outside of their class.
Carly Gaffney
My community service project is a program almost like Big Brother Big Sister but with terminally-ill children in local hospitals. Every teenager will be paired with a child who will be their "buddy" for the year! Each pair will have a chance to get to know each other but we will also have an opportunity to play games, cook, watch movies and just hang out as a group! My friends will be involved in this project so it is beneficial for both the children and teenagers. The point of this project is not for the child to feel like a charity case, but for them to take a break for their stressful life and just have a little fun like getting their nails painted or working on a model airplane! This is an opportunity for both counterparts to learn and grow from each other which is the objective for the whole program. Because everyone deserves a smile.
Hannah Leiberman
“Swim Dives In” will sponsor an annual dance to be held for team members of the high school swimming and diving teams which participate in the Massachusetts Dual County League (DCL). All funds raised from this event will be donated to Make a Splash (http://swimfoundation.org/Page.aspx?pid=261) a national child-focused water safety initiative established by the USA Swimming Foundation with the purpose of teaching every child in America how to swim. Responsibility for hosting this event will rotate annually among the DCL member swimming and diving teams. The goal of the “Swim Dives In” program will be to create and to foster a lasting tradition of community service for DCL high school teams that both brings awareness to the nationwide problem of drowning and aids in eradicating this tragedy by raising funds to enhance Make A Splash’s learn-to-swim initiatives
Daniel Mascoop
Diller has opened me up to the idea that I can incorporate community service into my Jewish activities. For my Diller community service project, I would like to change the culture of my own Jewish activities. As president of my USY chapter, I want to bring values of social service into our programs and chapter culture. Instead of just raising money for charities, my plan is to organize events, "SA/TO (Social Action/Tikun Olam) Sundays", where we go out to do a social action project with friends. In addition, we will have SA/TO lounges, where we will either do a project in the schul or we will bring in a guest to speak to us about community service. I hope to instill these values in the chapter so that it will be active in service for the future.
Ryan Meltzer
My community service project helps children who are not interested in volunteering. I will get a bunch of children together who do not normally volunteer. I am planning 5 different programs for these children to go through. These programs will be hands-on, educational, and hopefully motivating volunteering experience. At the end of the 5 programs they will tell me which program they connected to the most. Then, I will set them up with an existing program for them to continue volunteering.
Benyamin Meschede-Krasa
For my community service project, I decided to advocate for the elderly. I feel very strongly about my generations duty to senior citizens. I will video tape interviews with senior citizens who are financially unstable and rely on government aid. By creating a 1-3 minute video to send to senators and congressmen of these interviews, I hope to make sure that these essential government aid programs keep their funding. If we don't provide care for the elderly now, who will take care of us when we are old?
Brynn Pollets
The service project that I am doing is for my school community and in hope it will make Scituate High School a more environmentally friendly community. I am applying for a grant to change the water system in the school from plastic water bottles from the vending machine to purified, free and clean water machines. Our school is known for it's wastefulness, and this way we have a chance to decrease the amount of money and resources being used everyday at school.
Erica Richmond
My project reaches out to Diller alumni within the last 5 years. It creates the ability to connect and network amongst former fellows and continue our Jewish learning and leadership building by dialogue and communication. The page will consist of discussion boards sharing topics and questions for discussion. The page will also list stories and updates about what former fellows are currently working on and what projects they are taking part in, in their communities. As the page grows, I hope to move it to an international page and include former Israeli fellows. This will not only help the Diller alumni but help support Diller initiative in their goal of creating their own networking site, amongst Diller fellows and alumni.
Noah Singer
I am creating a program to involve young people in the lives of older people. On an informal basis, young people will have the opportunity to assist older people in their homes. I intend for the assistance to be things such as, putting batteries in a remote, help with e-mail, or reaching something on a high shelf. I intend to run this program at a local elderly housing facility. I look forward to viewing the success of my program.
Rachel Warshaw
Through Interfaith Action, an organization that promotes communication among people of different faiths, I would like to create which both involves education and community service. This organization has recently begun fundraising in a program called “One Bag One Life,” which funds to eliminate malaria worldwide. To build off of this campaign, I would like to create a program that educates people about this disease and gives people an understanding of why community service is important to them. The program will consist of workshops which will consist of educational movies, speakers and group dialogues. These workshops will allow participants to reflect on other’s experiences with the disease, how others have taken steps to eliminate the disease and their own passions for creating change in the world. Specifically I believe Interfaith Action should be the basis of the program because one of its main goals is to bring people of different faiths together to engage in dialogue and through this dialogue make connections with others. Through my program I hope to achieve this and also demonstrate the importance of people coming together to support a cause and attempt to make change in the world.
Halle Watkin
The goal of my community service project is to try to address bullying at a very young age. Children encounter negativity on a daily basis, but they are rarely given a positive outlet for the amounting stresses. I am going to set up a program at Camp Menorah, a local Jewish day camp for children from communities in the Greater Boston Area. The program will be called the Friendship Club and will help very young children become aware of the effects of bullying through role playing, team building activities, and crafts. By addressing bullying at as young of an age as possible, we will better prepare the youth for the stresses that lie ahead.
Tova Weinronk
A group of high school students will be traveling to an assisted living site where the students and the seniors will work together on small community service projects. Such projects will include making cards for people who are sick, writing letters to soldiers, and doing art projects that will benefit other communities in need. In addition to giving the seniors an opportunity to do community service, the project will focus on forming a connection between the teenagers and the seniors.