Thousands of Jewish College Students Engage in Serve the Moment

 

Repair the World and Hillel International’s efforts to mobilize thousands of college students in meaningful volunteer service and learning through the national Serve the Moment initiative resulted in successful mobilization and activation on almost 100 campuses worldwide. Both organizations are exploring the expansion of the project following its initial pilot year.

“The success and overwhelming response to this program is proof positive that Jewish college students are eager to create change by living out their Jewish values,” says Cindy Greenberg, President and CEO of Repair the World. “We are excited to engage even more students to serve their communities and address urgent local needs and inequity.”

Specifically:

  • 78 Hillels participated across 95 different campuses.
  • 101 students were Serve the Moment Interns. Each intern completed ten acts of service and engaged 25 unique students, resulting in nearly 5,000 students engaged in more than 26,000 total hours of service.
  • Eight international Hillels participated in the program: Queen’s Hillel in Ontario, Hillel Kyiv, Ben Gurion U Hillel, Hillel Campus France, Hillel at Tel Aviv U, Hillel Warsaw, Hillel Rio, and Hillel Russia.
  • The top three issue area focuses of the campuses were Food Justice/Insecurity (34 campuses), Racial Justice/Diversity (23 campuses), and Environmental Justice/Sustainability (23 campuses).

“This program has provided countless examples of our students meeting the moment of an extremely challenging period with hope, service and support for their local and global communities,” said Adam Lehman, President and CEO of Hillel International. “Through our partnership with Repair the World, Hillel is actively and proudly empowering students to have a real and sustaining impact.”

Launched in June 2020, the Jewish Service Alliance (JSA) is a coalition of organizations powered by Repair the World and including Hillel International, which is mobilizing tens of thousands of young people to do 100,000 acts of needed and meaningful service for COVID-19 relief, grounded in Jewish wisdom.  As part of JSA’s Serve the Moment initiative, Hillel Campus Corps Members led service efforts addressing four key areas—hunger, education, employment, and mental health—and the program offered training, resources, and best practices so that they carry out this work in the most effective ways. The service work combined in-person and virtual volunteering, some episodic and some a part of time-bound national Serve the Moment campaigns. This is just the latest partnership between Repair and Hillel to strengthen and maximize service opportunities for young people.

Applications are being accepted for the June 21-July 30 cohort of Serve the Moment Service Corps.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email