New and Gently Used

Avi Meltser, Camryn Geller and Emily Chandler, all 4, pitch in to help out with the

Year of Tzedakah program.

JCC's Pitt child center
teaches kids tzedakah.

Elizabeth Applebaum
Special to the Jewish News

W

hen you want something done
right, ask a little kid.
A little kid isn't going to
be "too busy" like a grown-up, cynical
like a teen, or totally absorbed with some
profoundly useful information, such as

Nietzsche's concept of power, like a college
student.
Little kids are just nice.
At the Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit's Sarah & Irving Pitt
Child Development Center, little kids spend
their school year learning a lot of facts, hav-
ing a lot of fun and helping a lot of people
thanks to the school's Year of Tzedakah

program.
Rachel Brown and Stephanie Langwell,
both of West Bloomfield, are chairs of
the Pitt CDC's Parent Committee, which
coordinates the Year of Tzedakah.
Brown and her husband, Steve Meltser,
met while working at the JCC's Center
Day Camps, so it was natural for the
couple to choose the CDC when it came
time to enroll their children in school.
Daughter Hannah was first (she has since
graduated to Highmeadow Elementary);
son Avi was next.
Brown is friendly, patient, enthusias-
tic and creative. CDC Executive Fredelle
Schneider tapped her right away for the
Parent Committee.
"Rachel has been a very active parent in
our program from the time her daughter
started here,' said Schneider. "If we needed
feedback from a parent's point of view, we
always knew we could count on Rachel to
help us out. She always volunteered for our
family programs and brought new ideas,
and we all agreed Rachel would be perfect
for the job.
"It was Rachel's idea to make it a co-chair
position, and when she invited Stephanie,
we were thrilled. They make a perfect
team."
Every school's parent organization has
activities that are pretty much standard, but
the CDC Parent Committee wanted more
than standard. The committee wanted to
"bring the concept of tzedakah into the
children's everyday lives," and not have it as
just a one-time event, Brown says. So corn-

mittee members worked with CDC staff
to create a yearlong program that would
allow children to focus on a different char-
ity, both Jewish and secular, each month.
Sometimes the theme centers on a holi-
day, like in March, when children brought
food (all that pasta and those cookies!)
for Yad Ezra, the kosher food bank, before
Passover. Other times it meant bringing
boxes of toiletries for the Judson Center,
which provides for families in need, or sup-
plies to the Orchards Children's Services or
items for the Jewish Family Services.
"We received a beautiful donation of
several boxes of new and gently used books
from the Child Development Center," which
were distributed to families enrolled in the
JFS's Healthy Start Services, said Lenore
Jordan, director of Healthy Start Services.
Children also make financial donations;
each Friday before Shabbat they bring pen-
nies, to be used for tzedakah, to the CDC.
The toiletries, books, clothing and more
all come together in large containers inside
the front of the CDC. Parents simply bring
in the items (and bring them in they do; the
bins are regularly overflowing) and the par-
ent committee takes care of the rest.
Brown further emphasizes the concept
by discussing tzedakah with her children
at home. "It's part of being a Jewish fam-
ily," she says. "We want to give back. We
want to help our neighbors and our com-
munity." I _

Elizabeth Applebaum is a marketing specialist

with the JCC of Metropolitan Detroit.

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September 22 • 2011

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