In 1999, a program was begun at the Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School to teach students about philanthropy. “Avodah L’Olam,” in which the students do their own fund-raising and advocating for causes that are important to them, has since been moved to the high school level, with both the East Bay and South Bay having their own youth foundations.
With the program now in its sixth year at the Palo Alto-based Hausner, 38 seventh-graders this year raised a record-breaking $52,000.
The students donated b’nai mitzvah checks to the foundation as well as money earned from babysitting and entertaining children while their parents were in conferences or at a book fair — in addition to soliciting money from friends and family members.
The 34 grantees received amounts mostly between $1,200 and $2,200, with the smallest grant going to the Salvation Army and the largest to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Grantees included local, international, Jewish and secular charities.
In addition to a few Israeli hospitals and charities, the list included some lesser-known entities such as Ma Afrika Tikkun (a Jewish charity in South Africa that takes care of orphans and victims of poverty, AIDS and apartheid), and the Mamta Vidhya Mandir school, a school in India that one of the Hausner students had visited.
The exercise ended with a May 17 ceremony at which representatives of Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Santa Clara County Supervisor Liz Kniss presented each student with a certificate.