giving back

by Nate Strauss

extraday of service

J-Serve Detroit gathers Jewish teens for a winter project day.

have always loved
J-Serve. There's just
- something about a
huge number of Jewish
teens getting together
with one common goal
for the day: community
service.
This year, J-Serve De-
troit decided to do some-
thing completely differ-
ent. Though we still plan
on participating in the
national J-Serve Day of
Service this spring, local
coordinators Jodi Gross
of Adat Shalom Syna-
gogue and Jared Roth-
berger of BBYO ap-
plied for a special grant
and ended up planning J-Serve Detroit teens volunteering at Gleaners Community Food Bank in Pontiac during a first-time winter project
a winter project day on
downtown again, this time to learn
teers.
Feb. 24. About 95 teens
about going green and planting in
I
learned
about
J-Serve
two
years
volunteered for this first-time event.
They painted, repaired a green- ago at ATID, a Monday night school large cities. I still follow up on this
house, organized the library and for Conservative Jewish teens. I de- cause as I feel it is incredibly impor-
clothing closet at the Baldwin Center cided to attend after I heard more tant.
This year, at Gleaners in Pontiac,
in Pontiac; prepared and served din- announcements through my BBYO
ner at an Oasis homeless shelter in chapter. I attended with all of my teens packed 7,800 pounds of food,
Highland Park; and volunteered at friends from BBYO, ATID and Adat which will feed 2,172 people. At
Gleaners Community Food Bank of Shalom Synagogue. We were bused Gleaners in Detroit, teens completed
Southeastern Michigan in Detroit and to the Isaac Agree Downtown Syna- 1,000 bags in 45 minutes for Gleaners'
gogue in Detroit and got to do some Stamp Out Hunger project.
Pontiac.
J-Serve 2011 also is a celebration of
About 30 percent of the teens were hands-on projects.
teen
service and giving. During regis-
The next year, there was no doubt
attending their first J-Serve project,
while the rest were returning volun- I would participate again. I got to go tration, students recorded the number

of volunteer hours they
have completed since Sep-
tember. At J-Serve's winter
project, an announcement
was made that the teens
present had completed
1,162 hours of community
service.
Lexie Sittsamer, 17, of
Farmington Hills was the
teen project captain of the
Gleaners Detroit service
site.
"I love to volunteer and
get involved in the com-
munity," she said. "I have
a lot of fun doing service
and complete projects at
least two times a month. I
think it is so important for
teens to take an interest in
their communities."
With such an amazing
2011 kickoff to J-Serve, I cannot wait
to see the types of amazing projects
that will be available for the spring J-
Serve project day on Sunday, April 17.
This opportunity is open to volunteers
in grades 6-12. For more details, visit
www.jservedetroit.
org.

}

Nate Strauss, 16,

is a junior at North

Farmington High

School.

feature

by Gillian Cooper

challenging role

W

ords cannot describe the
excitement I felt upon see-
ing my name next to "Anne
Frank" on the cast posting for Milford
High School's March 3-5 production of
The Diary of Anne Frank. Ever since I first
read the diary in sixth grade, I have felt a
closeness to Anne, and I am so honored
to have been given the opportunity to
portray her.
I have been in many productions
throughout high school, but this is defi-
nitely the most in-depth and life-chang-
ing role I have ever taken on. For me,
this role went so far beyond merely act-

delicious fundraiser

Alex Risius, a junior at West Bloomfield High School with bake-off

judges Jay Gundy of Café Via in Birmingham, John Somerville of the

Lark in West Bloomfield and Douglas Ryan, also of Caf6 Via, and

WBHS junior Nikki Fleischman who organized the Feb. 26 bake-off

that raised $3,855 for the National Eating Disorders Association.

TT2 teen2teen March 24.2011

Gillian Cooper as Anne Frank in her high school production

visit J Nt2t.com