Toni Kipnis has made many adjustments since her husband died of a heart attack in 1992.
She has coped with aching loneliness. And caring for her San Francisco house alone has been challenging.
“It’s very tough. It’s a lot to do,” the 69-year-old Kipnis said. “Some of the things we could do together, such as work out in the yard or move things…I no longer have somebody to help me do them.”
So last year, when volunteers from a program called Sukkot in April spent a Sunday painting Kipnis’ Excelsior District home from a “sickening green” to a warm beige, it made a world of difference for the widow.
“They really, really improved the looks of it,” she said. “Everybody was impressed — my neighbors, my friends. It looked like a million dollars compared to how it looked” before.
This year, for the third time, hundreds of volunteers from the Jewish community will fan out to refurbish local homes and community institutions.
According to Sukkot in April coordinator Dee-Dee Sberlo, more than 500 volunteers will spend Sunday, April 25 sprucing up local buildings in need of a facelift.
Their targets will include homes of low-income, elderly and disabled residents. At Guerrero House, a San Francisco facility for homeless youth, volunteers will paint bedrooms, fix banisters and replace the kitchen floor.
They will paint the interior of the city’s San Cristina, which houses formerly homeless individuals with mental health problems. At an elementary school in Potrero Hill, volunteers will paint a mural and fix broken benches.
Down in San Jose, volunteers will help transform the Alliance for Community Care, a provider of mental health services.
Sukkot in April “is a one-day-a-year opportunity for the entire Jewish community to come together and perform this giant mitzvah,” Sberlo said. The event grew out of mitzvah days staged by area synagogues, Jewish day schools and community groups.
April 25 volunteers will range in age from students to seniors and come from more than 33 Jewish organizations. In many cases, they will not only spruce up buildings, but spirits as well.
Last year, “the people who did the work were very friendly, very helpful,” Kipnis said. “It made me feel really good. It made me feel there are people that don’t even know me that care enough to do this for me.”
The volunteers will know about their site’s owners before arriving to start work. This year, students from San Francisco high schools have taken oral histories of homeowners. These written accounts will be passed on to project captains, who in turn will relay the information to their teams. That way, “when they come into the person’s home, they have a sense of the person and their family,” Sberlo said.
Sukkot in April coordinators work closely with those organizing Christmas in April, which involves community workdays across the country. In some cases, Sukkot in April volunteers will finish the labor of Christmas in April participants, who will work the day before their Jewish counterparts.
Much preparation goes into readying the sites for work. Project captains visit the locations to assess the need for labor and supplies. And people schooled in occupational hazards check the sites for potential safety pitfalls.
“It takes an entire year to plan this one day,” Sberlo reported.
Major funders for this year’s Sukkot in April include Christmas in April, the Koret Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund and Emanu-El Community Fund. Volunteers will be asked to make a $10 contribution to help cover costs.
This year, for the first time, volunteers will meet for a post-event party to celebrate the fruits of their labors.
“Everybody will come together paint-splattered, in dirty clothes for an esprit de corps,” Sberlo said. “We’ll high-five each other on a day of work well done.”