It’s been about five years since Mirtina Kukuljevic’s family members received their first gifts through the Jewish Family and Children’s Services of the East Bay holiday giving program.
The Walnut Creek resident knows she’s fortunate to be on the receiving end of things. Someday she hopes to be in a secure enough position to give back.
“That’s the most important thing you can do in your life,” said Kukuljevic, who came to the Bay Area nine years ago from Bosnia. “No matter what it is — words, gifts or actions. When you’re new to a country and have someone who helps you, you feel the love and want to share it.”
This year the program served 102 families, 30 more than last year, according to Kathryn Winogura, volunteer coordinator at JFCS.
Recipients were both Jewish and non-Jewish, and included refugees from Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Bosnia and Latin America. Others were Berkeley and Oakland residents being served by JFCS parenting and youth services.
“Often [recipients] are sleeping on mattresses on the floor,” said Winogura, now in her sixth year of organizing the program. “Suddenly they’re picking up new items, and it’s their start for the year.”
High atop people’s wish lists were school supplies and athletic equipment for kids; warm jackets, scarves, hats and blankets; toiletries and grocery store gift cards.
At the S.F.-based JFCS, holiday giving is done a little differently.
The agency, for example, recently hosted a San Francisco company that wanted to donate time and resources from its 57-person staff to JFCS programs. The company’s employees gave educational books, toys and art supplies to the preschools that JFCS works with through its Early Childhood Mental Health program.
They also spent time at a JFCS Dream House, a shelter for women and children who are survivors of domestic abuse. The group put together furniture, landscaped and painted in an effort to prep the house for new families arriving in January.
JFCS also recently partnered with Congregation Emanu-El’s bar and bat mitzvah students, who collected toys to be shipped to children in Sderot, Israel.
At Temple Isaiah’s Gan Ilan preschool, the holiday giving program became a part of the curriculum, providing some valuable teaching moments for the youngest gift givers.
“It’s tangible for our kids,” said Tracy Ucuzoglu, who chairs the Early Childhood Education committee. “Parents are talking about the program with their kids and taking them shopping. It’s very appropriate, and [the kids] get it.”
Noting the preschool’s desire to buy gifts for Jewish families, Ucuzoglu said roughly 70 preschool students and their parents purchased clothes and household items for their designated families, many of which were Russian émigrés.
In addition to shopping, the preschool children decorated Chanukah cards and wrapping paper.
“In the past, we’ve had projects that were wonderful, but the kids couldn’t relate to them as much,” Ucuzoglu said. “[The holiday giving program] has been a great way to have our classrooms come together and reflects the values of tzedakah that we instill in our children.”