32 | JUNE 11 • 2020
W
ith schools closed,
students of all ages
have had to shift how
they learn. Elementary students,
especially, are struggling with
productive engagement and the
lack of the social connections.
However, Bloomfield Hills
High School students Noah
Yaker, 15, and Noah Roslin,
16, devised a solution to help
younger students and engage
their peers in developing
relationships. They call it Big
Buddies of Bloomfield.
“The high school students
were feeling lonely, so we
couldn’
t imagine what it was
like for the elementary school
students,
” Roslin said. “This is a
way to solve both problems and
create a relationship between
generations.
”
Big Buddies of Bloomfield
pairs high school students with
elementary school students to
engage them in virtual educa-
tional activities, such as educ-
tional games, reading, home-
work, arts and crafts and more.
A majority of the “little bud-
dies” come from elementary
schools through the Bloomfield
school district, but their ser-
vices are open to any student in
Michigan. Parents can register
their children for a session
by heading to Big Buddies of
Bloomfield’
s website and filling
out a registration form.
The form asks for basic infor-
mation about the parent, stu-
dent, the elementary school they
attend, the student’
s learning tar-
gets and a space for information
about the student’
s interests.
Roslin and Yaker pair up the
students with a “big buddy”
whom they feel would best con-
nect with the child.
They currently serve 40-45
little buddies and have rough-
ly 20-25 big buddies, who all
attend Bloomfield Hills High.
All sessions are conducted
through Google Hangouts, via
the parent’
s email. Parents can
request a specific big buddy, if
they either know the big buddy
personally or feel a certain big
buddy would be a good fit.
Big Buddies of Bloomfield
sessions are free. Participants
are encouraged to donate
money to the United Way of
Southeastern Michigan COVID-
19 Community Fund through
the Big Buddies of Bloomfield
website.
“We want everyone to be
able to create a good dynamic
and a lasting friendship, so that
it continues long after the big
buddy period ends,
” Yaker said.
“
Additionally, we want students
to continue to stay motivated
during this time and make con-
nections.
”
JEWISH LIVE continued from page 31
They describe jewishLIVE as
“the Grand Central Station
serving the new land of online
Judaism.”
The portal, a digital Jewish
Community Center of sorts,
may remind some of the
Jewish community’
s first portal
on the internet when America
Online (AOL) first launched
with a Jewish community
in cyberspace. jewishLIVE
curates Zoom programming
presented by organizations,
summer camps, synagogues,
JCCs, and youth groups, but
it also offers Zoom rooms
to individuals and organiza-
tions who want to produce
live events but may not have
enough Zoom capacity or the
technical ability to do this on
their own.
“The website,” explained
Libenson, “which we created
very quickly, combines a cal-
endar of events with beaming
from Star Trek because if you
discover that something is hap-
pening right now, you can just
go there in a single click.”
The group produces its own
live events as well, working
together with individuals
and large organizations.
“Thousands of people have
participated in our programs,”
Rofeberg said, “and we’
ve heard
a great deal of feedback that
we’
re helping people to learn
and grow and connect during
a time when so many of us are
struggling to find meaning.”
While COVID-19 was the
impetus for launching the
website in March, Libenson
and Rofeberg had envisioned
the creation of a digital hub for
Jewish programming for some
time. “It had been more of a
long-term vision, but a couple
months ago, when COVID-19
really ramped up and altered
all of our lives, it became clear
that it was imminent for some-
thing like that long-term vision
to come to be much sooner
than we had expected,” said
Rofeberg.
The team has been pleased
with the response to jewish-
LIVE so far and so have nation-
al leaders in the
Jewish community.
Rabbi Irwin Kula,
president of Clal,
an organization
dedicated to bring-
ing Jewish wisdom
to the public, said
he applauds the jewishLIVE
initiative because it is “aggre-
gating, curating and enabling
access to high-quality live con-
tent on one trusted platform,
which has long been necessary.”
As jewishLive continues to
get funding to grow the website
and add content, there’
s no
doubt that it will live on once
the Jewish community is able to
return to a sense of normalcy.
“What’
s clear to us is that the
changes we have experienced
are not going to be simply
erased when social distancing
wraps up,” Rofeberg said. “We
are still going to need digital
Jewish programming, and we
are confident that many people
who just found their way into
the digital Jewish ecosystem for
the first time will be excited to
participate. Hopefully, many of
them will create their own pro-
gramming.”
Rabbi Jason Miller is a local educator
and entrepreneur. He is president of
Access Technology in West Bloomfield.
Follow him on Twitter at @rabbijason.
Irwin Kula
COURTESY OF NOAH YAKER
Older teens and younger children pair up to provide
students with social and educational tools.
CORRIE COLF STAFF WRITER
16, devised a solution to help
Noah Roslin and Noah Yaker, founders of Big Buddies of Bloomfield
Big
Buddies
Bonding in
Bloomfield
Jews in the D