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| Daily Schedule:
Every day has davening 3 times, eating 3+ times (late-night snacks!), and covenant groups, but otherwise every day is different. Here's what we did last year, and it should give you a pretty good sense of what 2005 will be like:
Sunday, 8/15 – leave from Valley Stream, NY Arrival at Pearlstone (www.pearlstonecenter.org) and ice breakers, special opening dinner The first of our nightly covenant groups “It was very important for us to debrief. It made the trip more memorable, to be able to express our feelings on what we accomplished that day.” - Jonah Bibi, Shvuayim 2004 Monday, 8/16 – Baltimore, MD We put up the fence for an animal pen for Garden Harvest (www.gardenharvest.org), a farm that donates all the fresh food it produces to soup kitchens and poor neighborhoods where you don’t usually get fresh food. Shopping and touring around Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in the afternoon “Try to Balance this Budget” activity Free time (we used the game room, the exercise room, watched movies, but mainly talk talk talked on our cell phones!) Tuesday, 8/17 We volunteered at Our Daily Bread http://www.catholiccharities-md.org/Community/ourdailybread.html, a soup kitchen that feeds over 700 meals every lunch, so you can believe we were really busy. To help preserve the diners’ dignity, everyone is served restaurant style, and we helped serve and clean. Rebeccah ran a cool activity on the sorry state of public education, comparing learning world history to reading a brownie recipe in terms of the knowledge you need to bring to it. That night we cheered on the Baltimore Orioles to an 11-0 defeat at the hands of the Oakland A’s. Luckily none of us were actually from Baltimore. Wednesday, 8/18 We volunteered at Sarah’s House, http://www.catholiccharities-md.org/Community/sarahshouse.html, a family homeless shelter. We played with the kids, prepared lunch, and sat down at lunch with the families to get to know them. In the afternoon we went to ESPN Zone at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, where everybody’s an athlete. That night we had a kind of political debate activity (no background required, luckily) to gear up for our trip to DC. Thursday, 8/19 – Washington, DC Reva Price, from the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, spoke to us about political issues affecting the Jewish community and how Jews are getting involved. Then we met with Josh Vlasko, a legislative aide at the office of the Honorable Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY). It was really cool talking to him – he was interested in everyone’s ideas and concerns, told us about some of Sen. Schumer’s main issues, and just took us seriously, which was great. We ate lunch by the river at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial, which is all about fighting poverty. At the National Coalition for the Homeless, www.nationalhomeless.org, we heard two homeless men tell their stories. One of them, Moses, a Vietnam vet, described how a broken home led him to run away, get involved in drugs and alcohol, and be a homeless alcoholic at age 14. It has taken him years to get his life back to what we might call normal. Hearing stories like Moses’ really brought home the variety of ways you can become homeless. When we left the NCH, we went across the street to a park where homeless men and women were waiting for a dinner truck to arrive. We gave out clothes we had brought to donate and struck up conversations with whoever wanted to talk. “My single favorite moment on the trip was walking through a DC park handing out clothes and talking with the people who are forced to make the park their home. I sat with people, spoke to them, heard their message, whether it was a passage from an old torn Bible or the lyrics of a rap song.” - Avi Miller, Shvuayim 2004 Friday, 8/20 We went to Pimlico Middle School, which is right near most of the Jewish day schools in Baltimore, and discovered that the gym had been full of junk the entire previous year, so no kids could use it! Half of us emptied out the gym, and half of us decorated the classrooms so they’d be a more fun environment for kids to learn in. Fun in the Harbor’s Science Museum! Shabbos, 8/21 Shiur on chesed with Rabbi Jeff Miller Kumsitz at night Sunday, 8/22 On the way down to West Virginia, we stopped to go canoeing in the thunderous August rapids. Then we got down to our luxurious volunteer barn, had our orientation with Habitat for Humanity, www.almostheavenhabitat.org, and got to sleep nice and early, ready for a hard day’s work. Monday, 8/23 – Friday, 8/27 – Pendleton County, WV Every day at Habitat, we’d break up into a few groups to work on the different construction projects. We replaced the siding on a trailer, replaced a collapsed ceiling in an older woman’s house, and built a porch deck for a younger Habitat family. At night we went into town, played sports, built a bonfire, or just hung out. “Volunteering at Habitat was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.” - Elliot Chiger, Shvuayim 2004 Motzaei Shabbos,
8/28 – Baltimore, MD Sunday, 8/29 – back home
What did you learn from Shvuayim 2004? “I gained
from this trip an understanding of the different levels in our society.
All day we are surrounded by upper and middle class citizens, and it’s
important to see how the other half lives. It was important to do things
on our own and fend for ourselves.” - Elliot Chiger, Shvuayim
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