for the needy before Passover
Tenth-grade Boys Town Jerusalem students are known as young men with a mission. Each Wednesday, they travel across town by city bus to fulfill a steadfast commitment they’ve made to the less fortunate. Their destination: a warehouse filled with food collected for the poor, where they voluntarily lend a much-needed hand to pack the weekly food cartons. Before Pesach, this mission is stepped up with a passion.
“The latest painful statistics show that around one million Israelis live in poverty, among whom are 600,000 children,” noted David Makmil, director of the food warehouse of the nonprofit Tachlit Organization where the students volunteer. “We provide nearly 1,400 such families with a food parcel each week. Thanks to the help of the Boys Town team, we’re well on the way to assembling special food packages to distribute before the Seder.”
According to Doron Taib, who heads Boys Town Jerusalem’s community-service programs, volunteering is a crucial value that the school inculcates on many levels. “We teach a young boy that he is not alone, that he must do his part to give to others. For many of our students who are accustomed to being on the receiving end of contributions, the effort holds particular importance. For them especially, volunteering builds a feeling of empowerment to lay the groundwork for a life of giving, from serving their country in the IDF to improving Israeli society throughout their lives.”
“Giving of themselves is one of the most important lessons we can ever teach our students,” declared Doron Taib. “As Passover, the Festival of Freedom, approaches, we’re grateful for the opportunity to help make the celebration more festive for those in need.”
Boys Town Jerusalem is one of Israel’s premier institutions for educating the country’s next generation of leaders in the fields of technology, commerce, education, the military, and public service. Since its founding in 1948, BTJ has pursued its mission of turning young boys from limited backgrounds into young men with limitless futures. From junior high through the college level, the three-part curriculum at Boys Town–academic, technological, and Torah–is designed to turn otherwise disadvantaged Israeli youth into productive citizens of tomorrow. Boys Town’s 18-acre campus is a home away from home for its more than 900 students. More than 7,000 graduates hold key positions throughout Israeli society.
