In This Issue:
- Happy New Year!!
- Fall Into a Great Volunteer Opportunity with TOV!!
- A Note from Bubbe Sharon
- New Orleans Trip 2009
- Katrina's Jewish Story
About Us
Our Mission:
To educate and engage seniors to do social action;
To empower grandchildren to make the world a better place;
And to create a legacy from one generation to another.
Do us a HUGE favor!!
If we want to provide our large network of seniors across the USA with the best possible opportunities for social action, we need to find out all of the successful things you and your family have done!!
Please send us your stories!
Send an email to our e-Newsletter staff (click here) with a short paragraph telling us what social action activities you do with your grandkids. We want to use your ideas for our next e-Newsletter!
You might think that a New Year is a New Year and that's it. But there's more to it than that!
Ask an observant Jew and he'll tell you that the New Year begins on Rosh Hashanah. Unless it's the New Year for the trees when it's Tu B'Shevat or the first of the months, which would be two weeks before Passover.
If you are an accountant, your New Year begins on April 16. If you're a company CFO, your New Year might begin on July 1. And if you are a child, your personal New Year begins with your birthday.
Ask any student - from kindergarten through grad school - and they will tell you that the New Year begins with the first day of classes. Most of us look at that New Year from a distance. While some of us teach or take classes, the years of new shoes, new locker locks, new books, lunchboxes, crayons, computers and on and on and on... are now memories.
But the time is NOW to create new New Year traditions and memories... with and for our grandchildren. And with Rosh Hashanah around the corner, it's time for you and your grandchildren to reflect upon the past year and what you have done to heal the world. Take those reflections into consideration as you and your family compile a social action resolutions list-discuss the little steps each of us can take, at any age, to make our community and our entire world a better, more just place.
L'shana Tovah!
--your friends at Grandparents for Social Action
Fall Into a Great Volunteer Opportunity with TOV!
T.O.V. (Tikkun Olam Volunteers) is the Volunteer Network of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.
Fall Mitzvah
Mania is here! Fall Mitzvah Mania, a calendar of one-time volunteer
opportunities, will run from Tuesday,
September 1 through Sunday, October 11. Do something meaningful
and fun this fall! Serve a meal, sort food donations, visit with the elderly
and so much more!
In conjunction with Fall Mitzvah Mania, TOV is collecting new toys, new travel-size toiletries and new winter outerwear to benefit the clients of local social service agencies.
Projects for individuals and groups of all ages are available!
For more information or to sign up, visit www.juf.org/tov or call the TOV hotline at (312) 357-4762.
I babysat for my 3 and 5-year-old granddaughters
last week. I put things in different
rooms of the house to entice them to play.
As I reflected on a great day, I realized that with a bit of
forethought, I could have made a wonderful day a teaching experience too.
The three-year-old is just starting to learn her numbers, so I put a bingo game in one room. Instead of just playing another typical bingo game, we could have practiced bingo calling and then, in a couple of weeks, call the local senior center or nursing home and ask if my grandchildren and I could lead a bingo game there. With my older grandsons, we could have even done it without any of the practice.
read the rest of Sharon's note by clicking here!
Grandparents for Social Action in New Orleans!
Be part of a social action experience that is
educational, spiritual and fun. Volunteer Expeditions
has joined with Grandparents For Social Action to organize a
mission trip to New Orleans for grandparents (and grandchildren 12+ if
you'd like) featuring well-known Jewish Educator Sharon Morton.
Do some good while having fun! Enjoy the culture of New Orleans while engaging in mitzvah projects that will benefit those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Enjoy the community of other like-minded, young, and lively empty-nesters who want to help to repair the world. Included are all arrangements:
- Private transportation
- Trip host
- Accommodations
- Tours of Jewish New Orleans
- Volunteer experiences
- Outstanding speakers who explain the city culture and challenges
- Breakfast and lunch and dinner each day
- Mitzvah projects
$665/person*
*based on double occupancy. Special pricing is available for families of 4 or more.
New Orleans Trip Info
Interested?
Contact Patti Vile at (847) 656-8181 or at patti@volunteerexpeditions.org
Are you still debating whether to go to New Orleans with Grandparents for Social Action? Check out this article from the August 31st Jerusalem Report, "Katrina's Jewish Story". (Thanks to the Jewish Women's Archive for the PDF file of the article!)