helping others
by Hannah Korelitz
Elmatal participants
Hand in Hand
included (top row):
Akiva students devise program
to help elementary students thrive.
Oak Park; Hannah Korelitz,
T
here was an air of nervous
excitement on the bus as we
rolled to a stop. Murmurs of
enthusiasm spread throughout the 37
Akiva students. Our assistant prin-
cipal, Kathy Sklar, moved us off the
bus, and we walked outside with an-
ticipation.
Last March, six then-freshman
girls left school for two days and jour-
neyed to Stamford, Ct. Madeleine
Warshay of Oak Park, Elana Green-
baum, Chaviva Bluth, Shira Parshan
and Shira Movsas, all of Southfield,
and I attended Yeshiva University's
Eimatai program, a school/commu-
nity leadership training event.
While there, we learned about the
severity of poverty in the world and
were instructed to create a program to
take back to their community to play
our part in helping to cure the world-
wide problem of poverty.
Together we came up with Hand
in Hand, a volunteer program imple-
mented right here in our school and
community this October.
Hand in Hand is a two-part pro-
gram that includes tutoring and work-
Madeleine Warshay,
ing at Yad Ezra, the kosher food pan-
try in Berkley. The first session took
place Oct. 27. The tutoring aspect of
the program calls for 20 Akiva high
school students to journey down the
street to Southfield Stevenson El-
ementary School, where each Akiva
student is partnered with a Stevenson
child ranging in grade from kinder-
garten to third grade.
In this monthly program, the high
school students tutor their younger
partners in any subject their teachers
request. The same students and teens
will be partnered all year, allowing
bonds to form between them.
After the first session, junior Liz
Kirshner of West Bloomfield said, "It
was a great opportunity to display our
chesed (loving kindness) and the tal-
ents of our immediate Akiva family.
It was really heartwarming to see how
each one of us can make a difference
and help these children learn."
For those Akiva students who pre-
fer a different type of chesed, Yad
Ezra was offered as an alternative.
Seventeen students went to the food
bank and helped package and sort
Huntington Woods;
Shira Parshan, Oak Park;
Chaviva Bluth, Southfield;
bottom row: Shira Movsas
and Elana Greenbaum,
both of Southfield.
foods.
"I really enjoyed tracking the
steps it took to reach our efficient as-
sembly line," said Avi Mendelson, a
sophomore from West Bloomfield.
"At first, everyone was independent-
ly filling bags; after a while, we gave
individual tasks to each person.
"The bag separators, bag openers,
bag fillers, and bag tiers worked as a
cohesive unit; and it was very cool
to see our speed pick up and very
gratifying to leave Yad Ezra having
filled a whole pallet in the course of
an hour?
For both groups of Akiva students,
the Hand in Hand program provides
a meaningful and enjoyable way to
help out in our community.
The tutoring program provides
a chance to help out Stevenson El-
ementary, a warm school where the
students are not fortunate enough to
receive the resources and special at-
tention we are lucky enough to have
at Akiva.
Students who travel to Yad Ezra,
meanwhile, help provide food to
those in need in the Detroit commu-
nity.
The Hand in Hand program will
continue throughout this school year
and hopefully for many more.
"It was really great to help in my
community while still having fun
with my friends!" said sophomore
Herschel Rogers of Southfield. {
Hannah Korelitz, 15, of
Huntington Woods is
a sophomore at Akiva
Hebrew Day School
In Southfield.
at the movies
by Gabriella Ring
play ball!
West Bloomfield friends play
extras in baseball movie.
W
hile most middle
school boys played
outside, went school
shopping and tried to coerce their
parents into one last summer shin-
dig, Charlie Gertner, Jake Rubin
and Dylan Wittenberg, all 11 and
of West Bloomfield, worked on a
movie at the end of the summer.
The three sixth-grade friends from
West Hills Middle School in West
Bloomfield auditioned among 1,000
other local boys in June to land roles
in Home Run Showdown, the story of a
misfit baseball team that competes to
play in the upcoming Major League
Home Run Derby.
Charlie landed the largest role
B2 teen2teen December 16.2010
among the three. He
pop-up baseballs during
worked 17 nine-hour days
a practice. Jake thinks he
in August. Filming was at
made the cut because of his
various baseball fields in
looks and his experience.
Taylor and Milford. Char-
He's been acting in plays
lie played on the main
since he was 5, but Show-
team and "had to sit there
down is his first movie. He
on the bench and smile,"
now has an agent.
he said. Charlie thinks
His parents are proud.
he made the cut because
They "told me a million
of his unique hair color — Dylan Wittenberg, Charlie Gertner and Jake Rubin at the audition.
times that I'm probably not
he's a redhead.
in the movie. During one scene, he
gonna make it, but they stuck
"It felt really weird because I was took a mitt and threw it at a baseball up for me," he said.
getting paid for doing something that commissioner. The director liked it
Dylan said his parents also got
was my pleasure doing, and I felt re- and kept the action. Another scene him an agent for future acting jobs.
ally honored," he said.
had Charlie pitching, and the direc- He is already looking for more work.
The boys were paid about $70 a tor especially liked his style, so he
All three were called to audition
day. Charlie put most of his earnings left that, too.
for another movie, but won't know if
in a college savings account, except
Dylan and Jake were extras. They they made the cut until December or
for $100 he spent on something he worked three eight-hour days and January. It was the boys' first time on
really wanted.
mostly played baseball.
a movie set.
His mother, Susan Gertner, said
In one scene, Jake was playing
"You could see the directors, the
that Charlie helped shape two scenes catch; in another, he was catching At The Movies on page TT4
visit JNt2t.com