Demonstrating the power of energetic youth galvanized around a worthy cause, students at a Jewish day school in Palo Alto are responding to the Ukrainian refugee crisis with a number of student-powered initiatives.

On a recent Friday afternoon, students at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School held a bake sale. They have also been collecting medical and hygiene supplies to send to Ukrainian refugees. And third-graders at the K-8 school have been writing letters to Ukrainian children, expressing their wishes for an end to the war.

“I know you are going through some hard times right now so I’m sending you hope and wishing you peace,” reads one letter, addressed to “Dear Ukrainian kid.” “By the way, I’m a kid named Levi who lives in California.”

At the bake sale, organized by the school’s second graders in partnership with the fourth graders and held a couple of hours before Shabbat, students and parents convened outdoors around tables displaying treats such as lemon squares, chocolate cupcakes, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and assorted cookies.

The children were eager to spend, and two local news channels — KPIX Channel 5 and KGO Channel 7 — were on the scene to capture the schoolwide effort.

“Bake sale: Proceeds go to support the Ukrainian refugees,” a colorful sign read.

As Russia’s war on Ukraine continued into its second month, Hausner staff knew the school had to step up in some way.

“There’s been a lot of learning, a lot of discussion and a feeling of this is a moment when we have to act,” said the head of school, Rabbi Daniel Lehmann, before the April 1 bake sale. “I think they are seeing the images, and there’s been a lot of conversation about it, both in school and at home.”

He declined to say how much money they were hoping to raise. But of course, the money wasn’t the point.

“It’s more focused on the effort and the process,” he said.

Hausner Jewish Day School has 315 students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade. It is the educational home of many families of Silicon Valley tech leaders.

Some students have been putting their special skills to use. After reading an article about the 3D printing of medical supplies, Jonah Sandel, a seventh-grader who co-leads the school’s 3D-printing elective, began 3D printing finger and fingertip splints that the school will be sending along with food and other supplies in care packages to Ukrainian refugees in nearby countries.

Vera Gribanov, mother of a second-grader at the school, coordinated the collection of the food and other essential items. The Stanford University linguistics professor had donation boxes decorated with Ukrainian flags placed around campus. Soon, parents were taking their children to CVS and Target to purchase goods, “so the kids would be involved in the process,” Lehmann said.

“When the war first broke out in Ukraine, a lot of families and parents in the community were feeling pretty powerless to help in any way,” Gribanov told KPIX 5 News at the bake sale. “Many people in our community have connections to both Ukraine and to Russia.”

The school collected so many items, in fact, it faced a new problem: how to pay to ship everything overseas. Fortunately, a school grandparent stepped forward, pledging a $1,000 donation.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began Feb. 24, Lehmann has been heartened by how Hausner students have been engaging with the crisis there. While many may not know every detail about the conflict, they are finding ways to connect with events as they unfold. Recently, a fifth-grade student did a writing assignment about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish.

The school also has been exploring the history of its namesake, Gideon Hausner, who was born in Lemberg, now Lviv in Western Ukraine. The late Hausner was the chief prosecutor during the 1961 trial of Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Final Solution to the Jewish question.

“I imagine Gideon Hausner would be [as] proud as I am of the various ways the Hausner community is responding to the crisis in Ukraine,” Lehmann said.

With Passover beginning this month, the message of “helping the stranger” was a particularly important one to convey to students, the head of school said.

“Thirty-six times in the Torah we are reminded to have empathy for strangers because we were strangers in the land of Egypt,” Lehmann said. “As Passover approaches and we recall our foundational experience as strangers and refugees, let us respond with generosity and concern for the millions of Ukrainians who have fled from their homes and are forced to be strangers wandering as strangers in foreign lands.”