Chesed with People who are Disabled
Make your synagogue (including the Bima) and Jewish communal buildings accessible to people with disabilities.
Purchase large print and Braille editions of the prayer book and Chumash for your synagogue.
Make sure to print some copies of your synagogue or agency bulletin and announcements in large print to accommodate the visually impaired.
Encourage synagogues and local agencies to purchase TTY's (typewriters and modems connected to phone lines) which will allow the community's deaf members to use the phone system to allow them to be tied into communal events.
Have synagogue services and communal events sign language interpreted for the hearing impaired members of the community.
Set up courses to teach American Sign Language (ASL), or sign up for an already-established course. A Basic Guide to ASL and Animated ASL Dictionary
Establish a group home for Jewish retarded adults in your community.
If there are already group homes in the community, make sure the residents are part of the community, synagogue, JCC, and included in community programs.
Offer to help facilitate their transportation.
When you hear of protests against group homes in a neighborhood, organize committees of people to show your support.
Visit group homes and institutions and extend invitations to communal events.
Encourage synagogues and agencies to easily highlight (in bulletins, newsletters, and publicity) what accessibility there is for their buildings and programs.
Encourage organizations publish their directories with notations indicating which buildings have what kind of access for people with disabilities.
Start a program for Jewish alcoholics, chemically dependent individuals, and gamblers in your community.
Establish a special "twinning" program with Jewish special education children and adults for the bar and bat mitzvah program. Match up a bar and bat mitzvah kid with one of the special people to share the day.
Collect hearing aids that are no longer being used and donated them to Yad Sarah in Israel where they will repair them and lend them for free to people who need them.
Handicap Accessibility~ Help to make local buildings temple, JCCS and parks handicapped accessible.
Volunteer for your local Children's Special Olympics, Children's hospital, or orphanage.
Chesed with People who are Elderly
Have your children or students conduct oral history interviews with the elderly.
Offer to run an errand or help clean the house of an elderly neighbor.
Organize an intergenerational crafts program, by having friends and their children do crafts with the residents of a retirement center.
Encourage Bnai Mitzvah families to invite members of the elderly community to the event, from the old age residence or independent housing.
Ask if your zoo will bring pets to old age residences for programs (make sure the homes allows animals).
Start an inter-generational choir, choral group, band, or movie club.
Start a workshop where the elderly make products for sale.
Distribute Care Packages. For example, make Shabbat packages for the elderly of your community. Include a meal, challah, candles, and juice.
Visit the elderly at retirement homes.
Serenade residents of retirement homes, or teach them Israeli dancing!
Adopt a “Grandparent” whom you will visit regularly.
Chesed with People who are Hungry and/or Poor
Check to see if your workplace or local restaurant donates its leftover food to organizations that serve the hungry. If not, offer to put them in touch with such an organization to arrange pick up of leftover food, and when catering an event such as a wedding, conference or office party, contact City Harvest (www.cityharvest.org), Table to Table (www.tabletotable.org.il) or a similar organization to arrange pick up of leftover food.
When making a wedding, bar or bat mitzvah or any other joyous event, donate three percent of the cost of the affair to an organization, like Mazon (www.mazon.org), that serves the hungry.
Every time you go shopping this week, buy one extra non-perishable food item. At the end of the week, bring the food to a homeless shelter, food pantry, soup kitchen, or senior center, or bring it to an organization that distributes food to the hungry.
Contact a local organization about helping deliver food packages to poor families or people who are homebound. In addition to providing people with food during the week, many Jewish organizations prepare and deliver food packages for Shabbat and require volunteers to deliver them.
Organize a toy drive or children's clothing drive. Donate contributions to organizations that will distribute them to children in need.
At an organizational meeting or get-together with friends, have everyone bring in a can of food that will be donated to a food pantry, or a toy that will be donated to a children's organization.
At an organizational meeting or get-together with friends, have everyone bring in a can of food that will be donated to a food pantry, or a toy that will be donated to a children's organization.
Donate old books.
If your synagogue does not already have one, install a food barrel to collect food and distribute to individuals in need, either through local agencies or individual contacts.
Set up a Mitzvah crib to gather all kinds of items for infants and young children: stuffed animals, toys, diapers, books, blankets, strollers, other cribs, etc., and get them to agencies that will distribute them to people who need them.
Encourage your local bakeries and grocery stores to channel day-old and leftover foods for local pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters for the homeless.
Find ways to take leftover food from Jewish communal affairs to appropriate recipients. Encourage local Jewish caterers to get involved.
Volunteer for the local "Meals on Wheels" program.
Establish a food pantry in your synagogue.
Visit the shelters, food banks, and soup kitchens in your town. Organize a program in the Jewish community to provide services for them.
Establish a shelter for homeless people in your synagogue.
Have a clothing drive for local individuals in need.
Build a Habitat for Humanity house.
Start a Jewish pro bono legal service for people in need.
Encourage your dentist and dental technicians to work on low income people for free.
Encourage your plumber, electrician, carpenter, handy-people to offer their services for free to agencies that will link them up with individuals who need the repairs done, but cannot afford to pay. If you, yourself, are such a handy-person, volunteer your own services.
Take underprivileged kids to a zoo, have a local arts and crafts program for the kids of a neighborhood, or adopt a child in an underprivileged country or right here in your city!
Donate kosher foods to kosher soup kitchens.
Hand out dinners to homeless people in your city, or volunteer in a soup kitchen.
Hold a Peanut Butter and Jelly-a-thon to make sandwiches that will be donated to a Homeless Shelter
Have a canned food drive where the goal is to make the world's largest pyramid out of canned foods.
Picnic for needy kids
Collect toiletries to give to the homeless.
Put together school bags for a children's shelter (they always have "new" arrivals and they need the supplies for them).
Chesed with People who are Sick
Collect items no longer used in health care facilities, and donate them to an organization that will lend or give them to people in need.
Contact The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation to find out how you can join the bone marrow registry. If you're already in the registry ask what else you can do to help.
Donate blood this week.
Make yourself available to drive someone the doctor or hospital.
Research the issue of organ donation in Jewish law, and consider donating organs.
Collect used hearing aids from audiologists, nursing homes and hospitals, and donate them to an organization like Yad Sarah, which will repair them and lend them to people for free.
Contact Locks of Love to find out how you or someone you know can donate a lock of hair. Encourage your local hair salon to take part in this process. You can also try Zichron Menachem.
Help organize a bar/bat mitzvah program for children with serious illnesses and disabilities, or volunteer to be a bar/bat mitzvah tutor for such a child.
Take your child to visit children in a hospital. Bring games for them to play together. Then leave the games as gifts for the patients.
Help an organization like OHEL by offering to provide transportation for a child or adult to family visits or therapy. Become a big brother or big sister to a child in a foster home, or a mentor for teens at risk.
Stay overnight in the hospital with a sick child, or baby-sit for a child with a disability, to give respite to the parents.
Start a Jewish hospice program in your community.
Volunteer reading Jewish stories to children in a Children's wing of a hospital.
Make candy trees and donate them to a children's hospital
Children's book making and donate to a children's hospital
Working with disabled/sick/less fortunate kids
Clown day at a children's hospital
Give blood.
With your Rabbi, research the issue of donating corneas and/or other body organs.
Write an Ethical Will and put it in your safe deposit box. The document should contain your feelings about what values you consider important as a Jew: caring, Tzedakah, kindness, decency, etc. (Consult: Ethical Wills, Riemer and Stampfer, Schocken Books, 1983.)
Consult your Rabbi during the week, asking who is in the hospital, and offer to make rounds. Establish a Bikur Cholim-Visiting the Sick Committee. Similarly, consult the Rabbi concerning making a Minyan for people sitting Shiva.
General Chesed Ideas
Make an effort to help someone find a job. Follow up through phone calls or e-mail.
Be on the lookout for opportunities to perform good deeds, and act upon them.
Support a friend's business
Think of something you do well, and use your talent to benefit others. For example, perform magic in a children's hospital, play an instrument for residents of a nursing home, or help someone edit a paper.
Try to think “out of the box” in order to find ways you can help make a difference in people's lives, the community, or the world, and start a project to help achieve your goal. Websites like Ziv.org will help give you ideas.
Volunteer for an hour at an organization of your choice.
Visit a website like dosomething.org to figure out what you can do to help make the world a better place.
Learn some magic, clowning, and balloon-animal making and use these skills in local hospitals and agencies.
Donate flowers to shelters, hospitals, or residence for the elderly.
Take a tour of your local communal organizations and choose one to get involved with.
Call your Rabbi and tell him that you are willing to be "on call" if emergencies arise and extra assistance is needed.
Purchase prayer books and Chumashim with Russian, Spanish, Ladino, Farsi, Yiddish, or other translations for synagogue members who will appreciate services more with these translations handy.
Organize drivers to insure that non-drivers, elderly, infirm, partially-able, or all-alone members of the community can go shopping, to doctor's appointments and take part in community events.
Set up a local Jewish Big Brother and/or Big Sister Program for the benefit of latchkey children or any other children who might need such a program.
Adopt a recently-arrived immigrant family.
Encourage your Jewish Community Center to make all facilities of the building - gym, pool, day care, message service - available to individuals presently seeking jobs.
Help revive or stabilize a synagogue whose membership has moved away.
Sing at hospitals, institutions, and other places where this will be appreciated.
Encourage your barber or hairdresser to cut and style the hair of individuals in local old age residences and shelters free of charge.
Encourage attorneys, accountants, and investment counselors to do pro bono work for (a) Jewish communal agencies, and (b) individuals these agencies might want to refer to them.
Develop a system which will keep track of people who no longer need certain items, and who, on the other end, might need them. The committee can serve as the intermediary for the transfer at no cost.
Plan an ongoing Community Service project that you would like to work towards in the coming year. Consider getting involved with the Ronald McDonald House, AIDS organization, children's shelter, synagogue, etc.
Clean up a local park, Adopt a Highway plant a flower garden at an old age home, or collect toiletries for the Ronald McDonald House.
Grave- yard Maintenance ~ Go to a graveyard that has been neglected and help clean it up.
Volunteer to clean up the home of Jewish folks in your area who are unable to.
Practice Random-Acts-Of-Kindness
Hold an infant car seat drive. Gather car seats no one is using and get them to agencies that will deliver them to people who need them.
Establish a synagogue or community Hachnassat Orchim-Welcoming Committee whose committee members visit people new to the community, welcome them, and introduce them to the nature and structure of the community. Congregation Beth Sholom of San Francisco, at the end of services, asks new people in the congregation to stand up and introduce themselves so that members can more easily welcome them. Other congregations have two different color cups—usually one blue and the other white—at the Oneg Shabbat. The Rabbi announces that guests and strangers should please take the blue cups, so the members can come up afterwards and welcome them.
Inquire about getting involved in your local Chevra Kaddisha-Burial Society. Many cities need people to sit by the bodies during the night before the funeral (Shemirat HaMet.)
Create fliers to announce that there are volunteers to assist non-native English speaking parents enroll their children in school;
Research and fundraise for ESL books and supplies for ESL students' use;
Israel Action
On your next trip to Israel, bring items such as socks, T-shirts, toiletries and candy to A Package From Home or similar organizations that will distribute them to Israeli soldiers. Before your trip, collect such items from friends, family and members of your community.
Encourage your temple, synagogue, or organization to “adopt” Israeli victims of terror through organizations like The One Family Fund. If they already have set up such a program, see what you can do to help.
Help support the Israeli economy by purchasing Israeli products at local stores and on the Internet. Sites like Standbyisrael.org will provide you with links to Internet sites where you can purchase Israeli goods.
Plant trees in Israel.
Organize a synagogue or community Mitzvah Trip to Israel, doing part-time "regular" touring, and Mitzvah work the rest of the time. (Contact: Rabbi Ron Hoffberg, c/o Temple Beth El, 338 Walnut Ave., Cranford, NJ 07016, 908-276-9231.)
On any trip to Israel, always take a larger suitcase than you originally planned to take - fill the extra space with Mitzvah items, e.g., medical supplies for Yad Sara, clothes, etc. Bring back items from Life Line for the Old.
Using the computer and computer whiz kid, keep track of which groups and individuals are going to Israel and ask them to deliver some of the Mitzvah items that have been collected. Ask them to bring back items from Life Line for the Old to be sold in the synagogue gift shop.
Collect wedding dresses and have them delivered by Mitzvah-Messenger to people in Jerusalem who will put them at the disposal of brides who otherwise could not afford to purchase one. One of the great, unique Mitzvahs. (In Jerusalem, The Rabbanit Bracha Kapach, 12 Lod St., 624-9296.)
Send messages to Israeli hospital patients through www.soaringwords.org
E-mail or Call the President: Voice your support for Israel and express your appreciation for his support of Israel. You can e-mail President Bush at president@whitehouse.gov or call him at 202-456-1111.
Shop for Israeli products at the local supermarket, through Israel fairs as well as through the various websites selling Israeli products.
Express your appreciation or send letters of encouragement to Israeli soldiers by writing your name, address and message and sending it by e-mail as an attachment to LettertoSoldier@jazo.org.il or by forwarding them to: The Jewish Agency for Israel, 633 Third Avenue, 21st Floor, New York, NY, 10017.
Tzedakah
When someone you know asks for some money “lend” money to him. Have him “pay you back” by giving the same sum of money to someone else who needs it in the future.
Open a separate checking account for tzedakah. Deposit a certain percentage of your earnings into the checking account, and donate that money to charity.
Loan someone money, free of interest.
Organize a talent donation. Get a few friends to donate their time and talents to help others. For example, a dentist can provide free teeth cleaning to children of low-income families. An electrician can do electrical repairs for a family who can't afford to pay for such services.
Put a tzedakah box—a charity box—at a convenient place in the house. Whenever you have spare change, put it in the tzedakah box, and each week, have your children put money into the box before lighting Shabbat candles. When the box is full, bring it to the specified charity.
If you are becoming a bar/bat mitzvah, take part a twinning program through Amit, or another organization offering this opportunity. If not of bar/bat mitzvah age, inform friends or family members about “twinning” opportunities.
Become a philanthropist by buying shares of stock in the World Repair Company or similar organization and taking an active role in the distribution of funds.
Contribute to a “new” tzedakah or an organization that you haven't supported in the past.
Get your family together and discuss where to allocate your tzedakah.
Organize a goods and services fair to benefit your synagogue or agency.
Set up a local Jewish interest-free loan society.
Give away some money daily to tzedakah.
Talk to pre-bar/bat mitzvah students about giving some of their time and money for tzedakah.
If you are a merchant or a professional, sell some of your merchandise or give some of your services at a discount, asking the "discountee" to give the difference to Tzedakah.
Gather friends for an evening of Tzedakah storytelling. Share the stories and review together the insights gained from them. They should be stories from your own life or from what you have heard or read.
Build up a private Tzedakah library: books, videos, slide shows, tape-interviews with Mitzvah heroes, and newsletters from various Tzedakah groups.
Set up a seminar for high school seniors, informing them for what kinds of Tzedakah projects are available on college campuses. (Contact: B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations, 1640 Rhode Island Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036, 202-857-6560.)
If you are a grandparent, invite your grandchildren out for an afternoon when you can tell them Tzedakah stories from your own life, and that of your parents and grandparents, to give them a good sense of the continuity of this Mitzvah through the generations.
Encourage your synagogue or agency to publish a regular "Be An Angel" column where it highlights specific projects in need of specific goods and services and where contributions are described and readers are encouraged to take part
Organize a Read-a-Thon in your school or neighborhood
In your classroom or home choose a tzedakah to collect for every month and educate the students about their work.
If you are an educator, Make sure that collecting tzedakah is part and parcel of the school culture by collecting daily during davening or weekly before Shabbat. Alternatively, you could encourage students to establish a tzedakah collective.
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