Ethiopian Children Need School Supplies

Here is the list of items as we discussed, that Ethiopian schoolchildren are in need of supplies. 45% of Ethiopian-Israeli children lack the basic school supplies essential to learning: books, pencils and other necessities. Israeli schools don't supply them and Ethiopian families can't afford them!

NACOEJ (North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry) collects the school supplies and distributes them in Israel.

The List:
(New and unopened packages...)
• Markers
• Construction Paper
• Calculators
• Post-it Notes
• Crayons
• Pencil Sharpeners
• Safety Scissors
• School Bags (Backpacks)
• Scotch Tape
• Metric Rulers
• Glue Sticks
• Erasers
• Pencil Pouches
• Geometry Sets
• Jump Ropes
• Deflated Balls
• Small Black Dolls
• Checker Sets (not Chinese checkers)

Do NOT send:
• Binders
• Notebooks
• Loose paper
• Pads of paper
• Clothing
• Chalk
• Thumbtacks
• Non-educational toys
• Games requiring English
• Paperclips
• Food of any kind

Feel free to bring as much or as little as you'd like. I recommend packing some extra garbage or plastic shopping bags to transfer the items into after we arrive in Israel. Joanne will arrange for pickup of the items.

Tzedakah Opportunity #2: Sderot Bakery Ordering

Lynne posted in the comments of the previous post, and also in an email -- but I wanted to post it here as well, an idea for bringing hostess gifts of tzedakah to our Shabbat dinner:

Lynne writes:
as you know, sderot is truly a city under siege. its 24,000 residents are under constant DAILY bombardment...from THOUSANDS of rocket attacks. we can help by ordering hostess gift boxes of cookies from the sderot bakery. they cost 20 shekels each --about $5---and they will be delivered to our hotel before shabbos on february 15. then we will have great gifts to bring to our host families and we will be helping a sderot business as well.

Here's a link to the organization setting this up (is this what you found, Lynne?)
Here's a link to another post describing this mitzvah project.

It sounds like everyone wants to do this one, so let's see how far in advance we have to order (I bet we can wait til our February 4th meeting)...

Tzedakah Opportunity

We will make decisions regarding Tzedakah opportunities in Israel at our next meeting. Between now and then, I'll be posting some ideas/options for everyone to consider. Please feel free to send me your suggestions and I'll be happy to post them here for everyone to read.

From Sari:

People Traveling to Israel

A donation of 1,000 pairs of alpaca socks has been made to Israeli soldiers. But we need people traveling to Israel to take them.
If any of your congregants are going to Israel and would like to take socks - from a dozen to a duffle bag - it would be a real mitzvah.
The socks will be picked up in Israel by a volunteer from the Packages From Home program that provides essentials for Israeli soldiers.

For information and to arrange a delivery, call Morene at 312-641-8568.

I'm not sure if these socks have already been picked up but perhaps we could arrange for another donation of socks through some local merchants.

Keep the ideas coming! Feel free to make comments (click below on "comments") to start a discussion here about this project or others.