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Comments (0)In my 17 years at Jewish day schools (first at Krieger Schechter, and on to Beth Tfiloh for high school), the idea that tzedakah is about more than charity was hammered home. The word’s root, tzedek, implies not only generosity, but also justice. It’s certainly a message that Sam Novey, another Schechter graduate, has taken to heart. Now a junior at Harvard University, Sam has started a campaign to raise $100,000 to ensure that every child in America is given a chance to succeed. And he’s going to do it by dressing up as a hamburger and running a marathon.
Sam has partnered up with b.good, a Boston-area chain of burger restaurants, as a corporate sponsor for “the Burgerman Marathon” (http://www.burgermanmarathon.com); the campaign is organized around Sam running the Boston marathon in a costume of their prime product. “The suit’s burger has cheese on it, but I only eat the veggie version,” Sam jokes.
The money is going to Citizen Schools (http://www.citizenschools.org), a nation-wide network that partners with middle schools to expand the learning day for low-income children. At Citizen Schools, students develop the skills they need to succeed in high school, college, the workplace, and civic life. Independent evaluations have found that the program improves performance in both math and English, improves high school attendance and increases the likelihood of graduating from high school.
Another idea persistently emphasized in Jewish day schools is the transformational importance of education itself. The message is, in fact, one of the pillars of Judaism in practice. Learning is not considered a means to worldly success, to achieving wealth or political power. Learning lishma, or learning explicitly to explore Judaism’s texts, is seen as the ultimate path to spiritual growth. Citizen Schools’ programs develop students’ leadership, oral communication, teamwork and technology skills. As the program’s website notes that these are “the broad set of skills necessary for success in the modern economy.”
But middle-schoolers aren’t looking for jobs just yet. At such an early age, success (or failure) in the economy is at least a few years off. I see the true value of Citizen Schools as two-fold. First, it pushes community members to invest in children who are too often and too easily ignored. Kate Canalas is a professional designer and “an enthusiastic volunteer” with Citizen Schools. When she first began volunteering, Canalas reflects that she “knew next to nothing about inner-city middle school students, or teaching them.” By the end of her first semester of teaching, Canalas was smitten. “The kids were great,” she said. “They were earnest and curious. And to say they captured my heart would be an understatement.”
The second value is providing students with more opportunity to appreciate education. The students’ improved performance and persistence in high school cannot be attributed to sharpened skills in oral communication and technology alone. Working with community volunteers and peers on group projects is a means of communicating the value and excitement to be found in education, the most important lesson that can be communicated through this sort of program.
Fundraising began last week, and Sam has already raised nearly $1,500 dollars — but the campaign needs your help. It can be hard to open your wallet in such a rocky economy, but it is precisely in such time that students’ needs are felt most acutely. “Now more than ever, our students and families are in need of the kind of services Citizen Schools provides” says Stacey Gilbert, the director of media relations for Citizen Schools. “Support from Sam and those he inspires will literally help us change the life trajectories of the students we serve.”
In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Tarfon says that we are not obligated to complete the entire task ourselves, but nor are we free from committing ourselves to the effort. Even if the Burgerman Campaign raises $100,000, it will only be a small step towards ensuring that every child in the United States has the opportunity to succeed. But for every child helped, it might make all the difference in the world. So I urge you to support the campaign, no matter how small your donation.
You can donate to the cause at http://www.burgermanmarathon.com .
Baltimorean Mordchai “Mardy” Shualy, a senior government and politics major at the University of Maryland-College Park, where he writes for the campus newspaper The Diamondback.