THE MIRACLE OF COMMUNITY DURING THE MIRACLE OF LIGHTS brainstorm about a mitzvah project to spread a little happiness to Coves residents. That was all I had to say.
By Faye Hedrick, Jewish Federation & Foundation of Northeast Florida
When it comes to a village, this community continues to be just that. I recently experienced the kindest series of events that can only be described as bashert, destiny, or all the planets aligning. Whatever you call it, without some sort of divine intervention, there is simply no other way to describe what unfolded to make for the sweetest Hanukkah Happy bags for our community members at the River Garden Coves and for some of our local Holocaust survivors. I was standing in for one of the Coves volunteer shoppers and met some of our volunteer shopping regulars. Since March, these volunteers have grocery shopped on a weekly basis for the Coves residents. One of these kind volunteers is Marcia Grado. Marcia made my day! She asked me if there were any other volunteer efforts she could help our Federation with during this inconvenient time in everyone’s life. I mentioned that our Young Professionals & Families (YPF) members were beginning to
Marcia first thanked me for being a part of the Federation and knowing Isabel Balotin who helped welcome her to our community at least ten years ago. She then offered to hand-make
Marcia Grado
George Washington Carver Elementary School. She also gave a similar reply as Marcia, “Let me know if there is anything else our students can help you with.”
I happened to be typing up an enclosure card to include in these Hanukkah Happy bags and the old teacher in me was thinking, this would be a great activity for students to practice their letter writing skills and it would be nicer to receive a handwritten holiday message than my cookiecutter greeting. So I asked Edith if her students would be willing to handwrite them. Without thinking twice she replied that they’d love to.
The sweetness continbeautiful crocheted pouches ues….Later that afternoon, that can be used as a pill Gabrielle and Yohay Levi, container, dreidel holder, or along with their precious whatever the heart desires. daughter Aliza, were stopShe showed me a sample and ping by the Federation office. I immediately took her up Gaby and I were introduced on her offer. She was ready and she said, “Let me know to begin the project and also if there’s anything I can knew some other women help with.” I mentioned the project we were working on who’d be happy to help. and that we’d like to include After shopping, I spoke a small hand sanitizer, gelt, and a dreidel in each bag, with Martin J. Gottlieb and I was having trouble Day School and DuBow finding small bottles of Preschool’s Director of Jewish Life, Edith Horovitz. sanitizer. She called me later Edith mentioned that the to let me know that she and school had already collected her husband found several bottles and she scooped enough food to fulfill the commitments they made for them up for us already. What Thanksgiving. They would a mensch! like to send their additional goods to the current And later that day, I mentioned our project to my food drive YPF is doing in mom and she said she had collaboration with JFCS for
about 50 little dreidels extra from last year when she spoke to my daughter Milly’s class, and she was happy to give them to us.
Shortly after that, I called the Jacksonville Jewish Center to see about getting the gelt at a discounted rate because maybe, just maybe, there was a chance there were extra this year because not as many people were shopping. I spoke to Tracy Hilbert, Director of Membership and Federation’s BRIDGES Leadership Development Initiative Participant, who promptly replied, “Wait, this is for River Garden and Survivors and it’s called a ‘Hanukkah Happy’ bag? I’ll call you right back.” She called me back quickly to tell me that the Jacksonville Jewish Center Sisterhood would like to donate the gelt. As I went to make a list of what we still needed, I realized because of the generosity of our community, we didn't need one thing more. We had everything to bring a lot of joy. I called to let Marcia know and she replied, “It was our pleasure to give back to our Jewish community during this bizarre and special Hanukkah.”
Like Marcia, I too am proud to be a small part of this. From my family to yours, I wish you all a Happy Hanukkah, the miracle of lights, and the miracle of community this season.
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