28 | FEBRUARY 2 • 2023 

OUR COMMUNITY

W

hen Hillel Day School’s eighth- 
grade Tikkun Olam class, a new 
elective offered this school year, 
debated on its MakerSpace project — which 
asked students to identify a real-life prob-
lem and develop a solution through design 
thinking — the answer was clear.
Although the class could have selected 
anything from creating a website of resourc-
es to building a physical object, the group 
of eighth-graders wanted to do something 
more tangible. Their choice: to create care 
backpacks for pediatric cancer patients.
Over the past few months, the class, 
which meets every Thursday morning, has 
researched, discussed, met with families of 
young cancer patients and experts, narrowed 
down vendors, purchased supplies and 
assembled the care backpacks.
“I wanted the kids to experience a much 
more hands-on physical sense of purpose,
” 
explains MakerSpace Coordinator Lisa 
Wilson, who teaches the Tikkun Olam elec-

tive. “We just started out with, ‘What could 
this look like?’”

EMPATHY-BASED SOLUTIONS
From that problem statement, the students 
dove deep into their research. Unlike engi-
neering, which builds a product to spec, 
design thinking has an extra layer, Wilson 
describes, that relies on empathy to under-
stand how others feel about the problem.
While meeting with family members of 
pediatric cancer patients and Hillel’s occupa-
tional therapist, who worked with children 
who have cancer, the eighth-graders asked 
questions such as, “What does a typical 
afternoon look like when you’re at the hos-
pital?” and “What kind of comfort items do 
kids really like?”
This, Wilson says, helped them thought-
fully choose items for their care backpacks 
that would provide meaning, joy and, above 
all, comfort for the young patients who 
would receive them.

The students quickly realized, howev-
er, that a backpack for a teenager versus a 
backpack for a 6-year-old would look much 
different and settled on three age groups to 
design care packages for.
In total, the class decided to produce 30 
backpacks. They would be divided evenly 
amongst 2-6-year-olds, 7-12-year-olds and 
13-18-year-olds, with each age group receiv-
ing 10 backpacks.
“
At first, we had two students who were 
extremely articulate,
” Wilson explains. “They 
wanted to call manufacturers to have them 
donate [items] for the care backpacks.
”
Yet, faced with time constraints, the class 
settled on the next best thing: Amazon.

LEARNING BY DESIGN
“The kids were always looking for the best 
deal,
” Wilson says, noting that along the way, 
the eighth-graders learned crucial skills such 
as finance, critical thinking and organization.
They looked at item sizes, construction, 

Hillel’s Tikkun Olam class creates 
comfort packages for pediatric cancer patients.
Backpacks that Care

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Kneeling: Eighth-graders Norah Miller, 
Ben Bronstein and Noam Kantor. 
Standing: Carly Schwartz, Emily 
Miller, Jillian Schiffer, Ammi Rotberg 
and Blake Weitzman

