Blog #4

Ellie and I have been working hard in preparation for the gala! We began Thursday morning by finishing 70 personalized speakers that will be distributed to the Friendship Circle volunteers. Although it took a while, we really enjoyed the process and the opportunity to develop our creative skills. After the chaos of working on gala preparation, Ellie and I had the chance to sit down with our mentor Yosef to learn more about how the Friendship Circle integrates Jewish values into its mission of building connections between Jewish teenagers and young people with developmental disabilities. 

We read from Chapter 32 of the Tonya - a Jewish scripture which the principles of the Friendship Circle are taken from. We discussed the importance of how to spread love throughout our lives as a way to honor G-d each day. Through volunteering these past couple of days, building new connections, and performing Mitzvot (good deeds in Hebrew), the Tonya advocates for us to create a lifeline to G-d, which I believed to be interesting and perfectly fitting for the Friendship Circle's overall mission. 

After that, we went to the office of the mayor of Pepper Pike to talk with him about the objectives of the Friendship Circle and have him sign certificates for the volunteers. We had the opportunity to learn about the mayor's past while also being greeted with the utmost kindness by him. He even informed us that he applauds organizations for all of the work they do and that he is a huge supporter of the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. 

Ellie and I spent a few hours driving to some of the local libraries and museums in Cleveland (such as the Beachwood Library, the Solon Library, the Orange Library, and the Maltz Museum) to distribute flyers to find new volunteers for upcoming Friendship Circle programs and events in order to tie in the mission of our project and advance in the field of non-profit marketing. This not only provided us with a short break from the continuous (yet extremely exciting) gala preparation, but it also allowed us to engage with the community in an effort to develop volunteer opportunities for Jewish teenagers in Cleveland who might not be as familiar with Friendship Circle.

The following day, Ellie and I put in a lot of time to finish the awards for the volunteer recipients, which included a small bag with an official certificate, an acrylic award, a pair of Friendship Circle socks, and a small basil plant with a copy of the Modeh Ani, a Jewish prayer recited each morning when people get out of bed. We had to put together 300 of the little basil plants ourselves along with a personal prayer card for this project, which required a substantial amount of time, patience, and perseverance.