Helping out are, clockwise from top left, Joshua
Bernard, 12, of Birmingham; middle school
principal Susan Shlom, Julie Lowenthal, 12, of
West Bloomfield; Rory Siman, 13, of Bloom-
field Hills; Jake Bross and Li zzy Belsky, both
12, of West Bloomfield.

ti

Corey Rosen, 13, of Farmington Hills
works on the project.

Staff photos by Brett Mountain

For Katrina

Hillel Day School project aids hurricane-a ected
schoolchildren in Houston.

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN

Staff Writer

ust days after filling their own
backpacks with school supplies,
a group of students gathered in
their school gymnasium to do the
same for kids they don't even know.
On Sept. 13, the vast gym became
the meeting place for Hillel Day
School of Metropolitan Detroit.
Classmates stuffed supplies into back-
packs and discussed the impact their
act would have on the recipients:
youngsters displaced by Hurricane
Katrina.
The Hillel kids understood that
starting classes in a new school would
be difficult for the thousands of stu-
dents absorbed into the Houston
Independent Public School District.
"These are kids who are going to a
new school and they would be going

j

there without any school supplies,"
said Ron Israel, 12, of Farmington
Hills.
"Maybe because of what we're send-
ing them, they will be happier to be in
school and go on to college someday,"
added C.J. Apel, 13, of Farmington
Hills.
Hillel provided 200 backpacks filled
with school essentials as part of Project
Yalkut, which asked Jewish schools
throughout the country to help.
To keep organized — and to allow
the entire Hillel student body of 596
students to help — each grade was
assigned specific items to bring in.
"This was an opportunity for every
child to give of his or her time, to go
to the store and buy the necessary sup-
plies," said Steve Freedman, Hillel's
head of school.
Several merchants made it easier for
the shoppers after being told about the

project by Hillel staff, including
Robyn Glickman, elementary school
principal, and Alita Cyrlin, associate
middle school principal.
Warren Sav-Mor Prescriptions in
Farmington Hills, Say-On Drugs in
West Bloomfield and Walgreen Drug
Stores in Southfield each gave a 50
percent discount on items for the
project. Meijer in Southfield and
Walgreen Drug Stores in Farmington
Hills offered 10 percent discounts.

Organized Assembly

On packing day, donated items, rang-
ing from water colors and rulers to
protractors and graph paper, were
organized near cartons filled with
hundreds of backpacks donated by the
Schostak family. About a dozen stu-
dents also brought backpacks for
donation.
"When we got to the gym, there

Noah Newman, 10, of Bloomfield
Township and Marissa Mintzer, 12, and
Lindsay Rosenbaum, 11, of West
Bloomfield help fill backpacks.

were boxes lined up," said David.
Friedman, 13, of West Bloomfield.
"They were all labeled with the kind
of supplies that were in them. The
students then took a backpack and
went from box to box filling them
with each of the supplies."
In addition, something personal was
added to the bags. "We wrote notes to
the kids in Houston and put them in
the backpacks, and I wished the stu-
dent I wrote good luck in the future,"
said Mitchell Shecter, 12, of
Farmington Hills.
"In my letter, I didn't mention the
hurricane," said Jennifer Peysakhova,
11, of Oak Park. "I didn't want to
bring back bad memories. So I wrote
that I hoped they met a friend in
school."
"That's something we talked about

KIDS FOR KATRINA on page 26

9/22
2005

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