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