Social Action

Food Drive

Hypothermia Project

Sukkot in April

Seder at the Virginian

Blood Drive

OT's Social Action program is committed to "tikun olam" (repairing the world) and projects are done throughout the year to benefit our community. The Social Action projects can be divided into three categories: ongoing (Reading Mentors, Shabbat services and holidays at The Virginian, donation of cell phones), several times a year (blood drives, food drives), and special projects (Christmas Outreach, Hyperthermia Project, Books For Israel, Help Our People Everywhere for Passover, Valentine’s Day Party in a family shelter). For more information, call or e-mail Clare Bachner at (703) 978-5722 or clarebach@aol.com.

December Outreach

Please contact Clare Vogel Bachner with any questions.

Chanukah Support for Our Jewish Troops Overseas. Please contribute items for care packages to show our troops we care and to help them celebrate Chanukah. Use the drop box in the lobby for: personalized Chanukah cards, current DVDs and books, boot socks, travel size toiletries, anti-itch cream, antibacterial hand sanitizer. Donate gift cards of any amount from Best Buy, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, Barnes & Noble, and other major store. Please deliver gift cards to the main office. Donations required by December 6.

Shoeboxes for SOME. Please wrap the top and bottom of each shoebox separately with Christmas paper and label each box "Man," "Woman," "Boy" or "Girl" as appropriate. Fill each box as follows, and deliver to Olam Tikvah by Sunday, December 15:

For a man or woman: hat, scarf, pair of gloves, pair of socks, pair of large or extra-large underwear, deoderant, razor, soap, shampoo, lotion, toothbrush, and toothpaste.
For a child: toy or game, hat, scarf, pair of gloves, pair of socks, pair of underwear.

FACETS Hypothermia Project, Saturday, December 24-Sunday, December 25. Volunteers who are at least 18 years old are needed to help care for the homeless staying at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. Volunteer activities include preparing and serving dinner, interacting with the guests after the meal is served, making sandwiches for the next day, staying overnight at the church, preparing and serving breakfast on Christmas morning. On Sunday, December 25, volunteers are also needed to prepare and serve dinner at the Messiah United Methodist Church, interact with guests after dinner, and prepare sandwiches for the next day.

Meals on Wheels, Sunday, Sunday, December 25. Volunteers, including families with children, are needed to help deliver Christmas meals to shut-in people who have no-one with whom to spend the holidays.

Christmas Breakfast at Katherine Handley Family Shelter, Sunday, December 25. Volunteers are needed to prepare and serve Christmas breakfast.

Food for Baileys Crossroads Shelter, throughout Christmas week. Volunteers are needed to make and deliver food to those residing in this shelter.

Ongoing Programs

Blowing the shofar at Greenspring Retirement Village for Rosh Hashanah

Reading Mentors: Olam Tikvah congregants volunteer to spend an hour weekly throughout the school year with children needing to improve their reading skills. This takes place at Annandale Terrace Elementary School. In addition, we have developed a program at this school to work with the parents of these students to improve the adults' English language skills.

The Virginian: We provide monthly Shabbat and holiday services to the Jewish residents at The Virginian.

Donation of Cell Phones: Throughout the year, there is a collection box for old cell phones. These are given to Jewish Coalition Against Domestic Abuse.

Tuna Casseroles for So Others May Eat. Every month, synagogue members prepare and deliver tuna casseroles to So Others Might Eat (SOME). SOME is an interfaith, community-based organization that exists to help the poor and homeless of our nation's capital. Deliver casseroles (preferably frozen) to the synagogue on the Wednesday before the third Thursday of the month, no later than 8:30pm (see the recipe and dates below).

Several Times a Year

Blood Drives: We have two blood drives each year coordinated with the INOVA hospital system. Our next blood drive is:

Sunday, November 13, 2011, 8:00am-1:00pm. Please take part in this wonderful mitzvah at our own synagogue and help support the constant need for blood donations.

Requirements: Weigh 110 lbs, be in good health, be 17 years of age (16 with parental consent form completed), be at least 56 days since your last whole blood donation.

To schedule your appointment for donation please contact AnnEllen Feltcorn at efeltcorn@cox.net or call (703) 425-3784. If you are concerned about eligibility based on medications or areas of restricted travel please contact our INOVA Blood Donor services advocate for a confidential consultation (571) 434-3387.

Food Drives: Olam Tikvah has had a long-standing tradition of having a canned food drive on Kol Nidre. We have added two more food drives, one in the winter when the food banks are low and one at Passover where we donate our “chametz” so that others may benefit. The two food banks we contribute to are Food For Others and ECHO.

Special Projects

Kol Nidre Food Drive. Please bring one of the following items to donate to ECHO (Ecumenical Community Helping Others) when you come for Kol Nidre services: Peanut Butter, powdered milk, vegetable oil, tomato paste/sauce, sugar (2 lbs), flour (2lbs), jelly (grape, strawberry), canned fruit, evaporated milk, baked beans, tuna, pancake mix. ECHO, established in 1968 in Springfield, provides temporary or emergency assistance to about 1000 families every year.

Support for Marguerite's Attic. The James Mott Community Assistance Program is a community-based non-profit serving the needy of Fairfax County. Their new thrift store, Marguerite’s Attic, serves as a source of additional funding so that they can provide more food and financial assistance with rent and utilities to their ever-growing list of clients. During the month of February, the OT Religious School collected kitchen-based items for the shop. During March, OT collected clothing for the shop's Career Clothes Closet. During April, we collected items that would furnish a bedroom: bed linens, throw rugs, sheets, mirrors, small lamps, magazine racks, pajamas or gowns, books, and pictures.

Christmas Outreach: We participate in a wide range of projects, providing support within the community and enabling regular volunteers to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with their families. We coordinate dinner, entertainment and spend the night at the local church housing the homeless on Christmas Eve; drive meals to elderly and handicapped individuals who are alone on Christmas; provide and serve Christmas breakfasts to those families residing in the Katherine Hanley and Patrick Henry Family Shelters; provide brown bag breakfasts and brown bag lunches Christmas week to homeless person residing in the Bailey’s Crossroads shelter; and fill shoeboxes with new clothing for a Washington D.C. homeless shelter.

January Food Drive for Food for Others. Please donate as generously as you can! Winter is a difficult time for those who are in financial need. The food banks run low, and canned food donations are essential. As a result, as in past years, Olam Tikvah will hold a food drive for the month of January. OT eighth grader Alexa Schmitt will be conducting the food drive this year, as part of her community service project. She will distribute flyers, prepare boxes to collect the food and coordinate the donation of the food to Food for Others.

Helping Our People Everywhere - “Pesach Meals on Wheels”: Sunday, April 10, We coordinate with the B’nai B’rith lodge to drive Passover meals to Jews in our community that are experiencing financial difficulties. Please volunteer for B’nai B’rith International’s Project H.O.P.E. (Helping Our People Everywhere), a community action project whose major goal is the collection and distribution of food packages to poor and elderly Jews during Pesach. Many Jews who cannot afford special holiday foods depend on B'nai B'rith members to provide matzah and the other Passover staples. To these people the remembrance is often as special as the needed food. We need OT congregants to deliver the Pesach food. Please e-mail Clare Bachner at clarebach@aol.com if you are interested in volunteering.

Rebuilding Together, Sunday, April 29, 2012: Each year, Olam Tikvah participates in our annual tikkun olam home-repair project (formerly called "Sukkot in April"), along with more than 25 other metropolitan Washington-area synagogues. The program improves the living conditions of elderly, disabled and low-income homeowners by helping them maintain their homes. Its sponsors include Yachad, the Jewish Housing and Community Development Corporation. Both skilled and unskilled volunteers are needed, and teenagers over the age 14 and over are welcome, with adult supervision. To volunteer, contact Eric Rothberg at ericandrachel@verizon.net. Morning shift is 8:00am-1:00pm; afternoon is 1:00pm-6:00pm.

Books for Israel: We provide English books to a school in Rehovot, Israel. We donate many copies of a book chosen by the Israeli school for the children to read together. The books, labeled as a donation from Olam Tikvah, are passed from class to class and school to school.

Valentine’s Day Party: Our congregants have a Valentine’s Day party for children residing in a family shelter.

Tuna Casseroles for SOME: So Others May Eat

Simply prepare the casserole according to the recipe below, freeze it, and drop it off at OT according to the schedule below and John Baer will take care of delivering all of the casseroles to SOME.

Call Shirley Baer with questions.

Casserole Recipe

Ingredients:

1 lb noodles, cooked
3 cans tuna fish
3 cans mushroom soup
1 package of frozen vegetables
Butter
Bread crumbs

Cooking Directions:

1. Mix first four ingredients together in a large foil lasagna pan.
2. Dot with butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
3. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
4. Cool, cover with foil and freeze.

The casserole drop off/delivery schedule for the 2011-2012 program year is as follows: November 16, December 14, January 18, February 15, March 14, April 18, May 16, and June 20. If you are unable to deliver on one of these dates but would still like to make a casserole, please contact Shirley or John Baer.