(Courtesy of OU-JLIC) From soup kitchens to homeless shelters, hundreds of OU-JLIC college students across New York, Los Angeles and Israel demonstrated their commitment to giving back to the community this past March. JLIC’s spirit of generosity and community service was highlighted as students aimed to fulfill the full scope of the mitzvah of matanot l’evyonim, giving gifts to the needy.

Leading up to the holiday of Purim, OU-JLIC at UCLA partnered with Our Big Kitchen Los Angeles (OBKLA), a kosher, community-run industrial kitchen initiative, to prepare and package meals for those in need.

In Herzliya, the OU-JLIC community packed mishloach manot to cancer patients and oncology doctors around the country. They also delivered mishloach manot to the elderly.

Under the guidance of Rabbi Joe Wolfson, OU-JLIC’s national chesed coordinator, students turned money into meaningful holiday gifts.

“With funds raised in advance, we were able to purchase items that became part of specially tailored care packages containing items that will make a real difference to the lives of the recipients,” said Wolfson.

In New York, the OU-JLIC campus at NYU raised money to purchase basic necessities—such as winter hats and gloves, clothing, toiletries and diapers—and then delivered the packages to The Bowery Mission’s homeless shelter and the Sanctuary for Families, a domestic violence shelter. Students also raised funds for local Jewish families in the Lower East Side.

Wolfson encouraged students to get creative with solicitations: soaps from hotels, extra socks from clothing shops, and hygiene products from hospitals.

The OU-JLIC in Givat Shmuel raised 10,000 shekel for care packages that were given out on Purim day at a soup kitchen in Bnei Brak.

In Tel Aviv, OU-JLIC community members brought holiday packages including homemade challahs to Shoah survivors and partnered with LaSova Gagon Homeless Shelter to deliver care packages to the shelter’s 125 residents.

“Partnering with these amazing organizations created relationships, opportunities to make a difference, and forged a deeper connection to our local neighborhoods,” said Wolfson.

OU-JLIC helps young men and women thrive and observe key aspects of Jewish life on secular campus environments and young professional communities across the United States, Canada and Israel. For more info visit www.oujlic.org