Mission Possible!

So, you may be wondering, 'what is the Tzedakah Foundation planning to focus on?' I am proud to announce:

Jewish Youth Tzedakah Foundation

Mission Statement:
The Jewish Youth Tzedakah Foundation is focused on reducing the impact of poverty among Jews. Through the Jewish values of tzedakah and communal responsibility we hope to bring forth positive change.

This is a great year of young leaders making a huge impact in the community!

Stay tuned.......

Max blogs on our second meeting

In this week’s lesson the foundation determined our own personal values that each person assigns through Tzedekah. We learned that each person applies their personal circumstances which influence our ability to perceive value. The majority of the organization seemed to support the majority of the money being donated to influence college loans, which may be because we all have college on our minds.

After this exercise we moved on to narrowing down what exactly Tzedekah is, and how it is unique from Gimelut Chasidim, and Charity. We determined that Tzedekah is unique because it is a combination of both of these Jewish values, and that Tzedekah not only is the giving of money, but it is also determined by the motive. Without these key elements of value it would be hard for the foundation to determine Tzedekah’s worth because it would be nebulous.

Finally we worked on creating the foundation’s mission statement. The group managed to reach consensus and the struggle led to the fruitful results of our new mission statement. It is focused around helping Jews who are ailing from the plight of poverty. We came to a consensus that it was necessary to not focus on location because it would blind us from the troubles occurring in Israel, Europe, Africa, etc… if we specified locally. This consensus was a large leap forward in accomplishing our goal.

Marissa blogs on our second meeting

This past meeting, October 18, we finalized our mission statement. Before doing so, Miranda gave us each a fake dollar and had us decide what to do with it based on three different scenarios. The first scenario involved an old woman named Sylvia who shakes a can for 24 years asking for change for JNF. The second scenario involved a man named Mike who calls around Rosh Hashana and asks for donations for a college fund he started because his son was killed in the Holocaust. This was a free college loan. The third scenario involved a homeless person who comes up to your face and asks for money. I chose to give my dollar to the free college fund because it really hit home for me. I have to apply to colleges soon, and I would want to be able to pay for college. After this activity, we talked about the differences between charity, gemilut chasadim and tzedakah. We decided that charity is giving money to those in need, gemilut chasadim is kindness to others, and tzedakah is a mixture of the two. Then it was time to decide on our mission statement. We had a lot of trouble deciding what the main focus of our group was going to be, but we finally came to a consensus. The Jewish Youth Tzedakah Foundation is focused on reducing the impact of poverty among Jews.

On a Mission (from God?)

Our last meeting had quite a bit going on, but the main thing that we grappled with was forming a mission statement for the group. This mission statement is critical as it gives us and area or areas to focus on and a framework with which to proceed through the year. It is also the first 'test' if you will of the consensus decision making model. It was most interesting, but you will find out more from our bloggers this time. Take a look at their posts!