When I started, I didn’t understand the business I was in. I didn’t start out with a business plan or with fundraising. I started with people saying, “I heard you were a lady who would help with this when no one else will.” When you get calls like that, it is very hard to turn people away. If somebody is entrusting you by calling you in that way, you need to take that really seriously and think about what need you are filling for people. Why are you getting those calls? Why are people expressing that need to you? They’re expressing that need because there’s nowhere else to turn. Their circumstances are dire. You’re their last hope. That made me frame this organization very differently.
Mitzvah Circle provides personalized care packages to help people meet short-term needs.
Most acts of kindness that people do are assembly line kind of things. It’s one size fits all. But as we know, one size never fits all. It sort of diminishes the uniqueness of every individual. If you truly believe that every person matters, then I don’t want to, [for example,] give people clothing that’s too small, because then we’re giving them something that doesn’t work for them. [In addition], people want to do service that they understand to be true and meaningful. [At Mitzvah Circle, our volunteer] is going to [personally] pick out the clothes, formula for the baby, clean sheets, etc.
That [volunteer] will feel a kind of satisfaction [knowing] someone can sleep tonight with a blanket because you gave them one today and they didn’t have to go to a charity that’s just for blankets. That’s how we’re designed in America and that’s a barrier to people who are poor and sick. That’s why our care packages include everything for the entire family in one location, which is harder on us but easier on the ones we serve. That’s the intention. We’re willing to take on work that’s more complex to make it easier on people who are in difficult times.
Every package includes a note from the volunteer who packed it.
That personalizes the care we’ve given. It gives people the opportunity to encourage people to take that next step forward. It also allows the person who packs the box to – if there weren’t sneakers or there wasn’t a bra for the mom – to say, “We’re so sorry we didn’t have these things. You can check back with us in three months. But we really hope you stay warm and we hope you like the blankets we gave you.”
People keep those notes much longer than the clothes. When the clothes are outgrown or worn out, parents will say, “I kept this in my bag hoping I didn’t need to call you again. But I needed to, so I used this note so that I would be able to contact you.”
There are people who have said that those notes turned their life around because when a stranger goes out of their way to help, you who doesn’t owe you a dime and has never met you before, then you have a greater responsibility to do your best.
We provide personal care products including period supplies.
Years ago, a woman called. She worked at Dunkin Donuts. She said, “I need pads because I got my period. I don’t get paid until Friday and I’m not going to be able to go to work. I’ve called out a couple days already. I think I’m going to lose my job.” After that, we started putting them in every package. To me, it’s part of women’s health. The same people who need diapers for their babies need pads and tampons and we’re giving out a million diapers a year. Then I started thinking, “How can we reach the people who don’t know where to ask?” And so that’s when we started our school-based program.
We’re in about 40 schools with our period supply program and that just started in 2018.
We train school nurses so that if a student comes and says, “I just got my period, can I come get a pad?” the nurse will say, “Do you have any pads at home? If not, you can take the whole box.” We supply all that. Dignity and hope come from the approach. What is the conversation? How are the two people in a relationship? If it can be done in a very dignified way, then there’s no missed school. It’s comfortable. And this way in June, for the students that have been identified as needing help, they can give them three boxes so they’ll be fine over the summer.
We’re training the next generation and building a network of caring.
The guiding principle in my mind is that you create the world in which you want to live. If you really believe in that future, then it’s our obligation to train future leaders.
Students in high school have a lot of competing priorities, but they also want to find peers who are interested in giving back, people you can work with and be your real self with. From that thought, our Teen Ambassador program was grown. They have several training sessions and once they are trained, they are required to come once a month to participate. They gain the skills to be our leaders, whether it be for corporate groups, Teen Nights, Sunday Service days or different collections.
We also ask them to be ambassadors in their own communities. So if there’s a family that the school is collecting [donations] for because their home burned down or they suffered tragedy, they can go to the school counselor and let them know that Mitzvah Circle is there to support those needs. That empowers them to be able to speak to an issue they see and find a solution. They can also use their time in their school to do a collection. A child who runs track may say, “I know that Mitzvah Circle really needs sneakers so kids can run, jump and play and develop normally. I’m going to put a big brown box at practice and see how many sneakers I can collect.” [We have a similar Junior Ambassador program for middle school students and an internship program for college students.]
My main goal is for them to go on to be people of excellence in whatever they do and to have a compassionate ear for people who are suffering. They’ll be good citizens. They’ll be aware that there are gaps in the system. Whether they meet that gap for someone on one day in one moment or whether they do something, like we do, to meet it every day–to me that doesn’t matter. What matters is they have the compassion and awareness to carry that with them whatever they do.
Serving the needs of our volunteers and employees is as important as serving the needs of our clients.
You’re there to serve people in need, but you’re also serving the people who work for you. They’re there to complete your mission. They’re there for personal reasons because they’re on their own journey and they want to grow as people in an environment that’s flexible and caring.
If you want to do good in the world, I want you to have that opportunity. Not everyone is going to love what we do. Some people say, “I don’t want to make packages. It’s sad for me. I don’t want to sort clothes, but I can sort books or something else.” And we say, “OK.” It’s about fit and the assessment of fit. If your gut tells you something and your gut is good, you’re the expert on the people you’re working with and who you’re leading. One of our interns, when she came to me, she was afraid of talking on the phone. Another internship would say, “Well, then you’re not meant for this work.” But I said, “If you think you’re meant for this work, we will get you to the point where you can talk on the phone. Here’s the plan of how we’re going to do this.” Now she’s working at CHOP (Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania) and referring people to us.
I care about the people who volunteer here. I care about the people we serve. I care about our employees and their families. To me, that’s what makes this work.
Captured Spring 2019
Images courtesy of Fran Held.