Dear Kehillah Community,

Food insecurity and houselessness are real problems in our community. Every day we see people in our area living on the streets or out of RVs because they can’t afford a home. We know people tend to dehumanize and blame these houseless people for their situations, but we see it differently.

As mentioned in the last panoRAMa, Kehillah has given us, as students, the space to learn more deeply about the world and the people around us. We have the ability to help affect meaningful change, so we should. Which is why last year we co-founded the Service Club, a club that focuses specifically on doing service work with the houseless population in the Bay Area.

Last weekend, we joined First Step for Families, an interim shelter that is part of the LifeMoves nonprofit in San Mateo. Kehillah has been partnering with LifeMoves for over seven years, with various combinations of students and faculty fulfilling needs where we could. 

This recent event was the culmination of weeks of preparation from our club members. It started with a bake sale at Kehillah, where we sold homemade brownies to raise money for the groceries we used for the meal. We learned how to budget and how to scale recipes to serve more people. As a result, on this trip, we provided a meal for 100 people!

Our personal experiences at the shelter each month have strengthened our perspective and helped us make a real-world connection to Kehillah’s commitments and values. At the shelter, concepts like Everyone Counts and We Take Responsibility for Ourselves, Our Learning, and Our Community become actionable ideas–as does tikkun olam, or “repairing the world.” We believe that these monthly activities are a direct extension of our education, and we know that we benefit from these experiences just as much, if not more, as the people we’re trying to serve. 

If you are interested in donating to the Service Club, keep your eye out for our next bake sale, stop by our weekly meetings each Monday, or check out our new GoFundMe page.

Thank you for your support!