Schechter Alumni Profile: Jeremy Bayes '05

Jeremy Bayes is quick to roll up his sleeves and get his hands dirty. As an undergraduate at Ithaca College, Jeremy studied economics and politics while also becoming involved with the Cornell Farmworker Program. He was drawn to the program’s mission of providing farmworkers with legal protection, living wages and housing as well as respect within the local community. “I offered English lessons and community support to immigrant dairy workers in upstate New York. It really sparked my interest in Latin culture, immigration issues and political justice,” Jeremy explains.

Immediately after Jeremy’s 2013 graduation from Ithaca, he joined the Peace Corps, serving in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Panama where he worked to bring sustainable agriculture to rural, hillside communities. Jeremy’s fluency in Spanish, begun at Schechter and honed in college during a semester abroad in Spain, was an essential tool. Jeremy details the profound challenges faced by local farmers. “These are rural sub-subsistence areas with no roads, no electricity, infrequent water access and minimal provisions. There are heavy rains which devastate the soil while population increases mean less available land. Mostly, farmers are able to grow high carb, starchy crops such as bananas, yuka, otoe, rice, beans and corn.” Composting, irrigation and agricultural improvements are among the life-changing skills that Jeremy strove to introduce to these poor, indigenous communities.

Progress was painstaking and limited, however. Jeremy recounts local farmers’ wariness of change. “These people work very, very hard. They have no time to spend on new technology or a novel approach if they do not feel certain about it or have not seen it.” Projects in which people could witness visible progress were more intriguing than long term projects that would produce results over time. Jeremy notes some partial successes with rice and fish tanks that yielded tilapia, snails and other filter feeders while also producing waste that could fertilize fields. “Our biggest win was composting. My host family worked with me to collect organic materials. We slowly improved the soil quality in a small plot of land I had rented.” When community members saw a burgeoning garden full of foods such as peppers, sweet potatoes and peanuts, they were heartened and intrigued. Jeremy paid children in the village to go to the stream and pick up leaves that would have otherwise washed away, but could now be added to the compost instead. Little by little, some families adopted the practices.

On top of the agricultural improvements Jeremy sought to establish, he focused on bringing other benefits to the community as well. He organized and maintained a small library with both English and Spanish books and taught English to any local residents who were interested in learning. Jeremy fondly recalls the reading buddy program that partnered Schechter middle-schoolers with Boston-area first-graders. “I remember very clearly going to read with them. I saw just how excited young kids are to read and learn. This has continuously proven true since then. I saw it as a big brother in high school and in the rush of kids to pick out their favorite books from the community library in Panama. What I learned from teachers and classmates has been passed on and that buddy program was a strong example.”

Jeremy also collaborated with village members to repair an old, hillside dirt road through pickaxing without the use or benefit of machinery. Ultimately, when Jeremy reflects on his two years in Panama, however, he expresses some disappointment as the initiatives he struggled to launch proved to be tenuous, short-lived fixes. “I have come to believe that without education, sustainable, long term improvements are neither feasible nor likely.”

Returning to the United States in 2015, Jeremy had a brief tenure at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C. before relocating to Vermont for a job with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He is also currently pursuing his Master’s Degree in Human Resources and Organizational Development with a concentration in Employment Law at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont.

For now, Jeremy finds true benefits in the smallness of Vermont versus the metropolis of D.C. or even Boston. In a shift from the grand, international scope of the Peace Corps, he is training his efforts on his immediate community, becoming involved in local politics and attending town council meetings. He acknowledges this as a shift in his thinking. “Vermont is so progressive that it is really possible to make change and get things done. I have access to my state senators in a way that would not happen

in a larger, municipal setting.” In the Burlington area where Jeremy lives, immigrant communities mainly hail from East Africa, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. He has been involved in initiatives to give farmworkers land to use at their own discretion to develop secondary businesses, often growing vegetables native to their homeland which can then be sold for profit. He has also taught cross-country skiing to low-income youth in the area and is moved by “the faces of middle-schoolers learning to cross country ski for the first time.”

Jeremy adds that the perks of being in a small community extend to Jewish life as well. He is a co-founder of a Jewish communal group, the Champlain Shalhomies, that unites the four small, struggling synagogues in the Burlington area. Jeremy appreciates his close friendship with the Chabad rebbe and the social activities planned by Shalhomies. “We have major holiday celebrations and a seder with up to 30 people.”

Jeremy’s plans to continue supporting refugee populations both through advocacy and direct collaboration reveal a deep-rooted, unshakable commitment to service in the face of often daunting challenges. “At Schechter, my friends and teachers were very inspirational in their communities and it made quite an impression on me. The concept of gemilut chasidim (giving of lovingkindness) was very powerful because many families and teachers were doing inspirational work in their communities.” Indeed, the words of Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) best seem to describe Jeremy’s passion and purpose: “The world stands on three things: Torah, service and acts of lovingkindness (1:2). You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it (2:21).”

For more details about Jeremy’s volunteer activity, go to:

https://catamounttrail.org/programs/ ski-cubsabout/about/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ ChamplainShalhomies/