Summer 2020 has been one for the books. The coronavirus pandemic forced teens across the world to cancel their summer plans and find alternative ways to spend their time. Organizations like the Orthodox Union (OU) have stepped in to fill the void, offering programming such as Project Community 2020 (PC20), an initiative launched in response to the cancellation of its many NCSY and Yachad summer programs.
One of PC20’s projects took place in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the Long Beach Martin Luther King (MLK) Center, where teen volunteers were sent to Long Beach, New York to help rebuild the home of the MLK Center’s chairman, which was destroyed during Hurricane Sandy.
The project was spearheaded by NCSY’s disaster relief missions division, headed by Bergenfield’s Rabbi Ethan Katz. Teens from New Jersey made the trip out to Long Island last week as part of the Fred and Rose Distenfeld NJ NCSY Chessed Missions fellowship.
“While the coronavirus impacted our ability to send NCSYers to areas of disasters outside of their areas of residence, our hope for the end of this year is to work on local projects for our volunteers to impact those experiencing food insecurity, and to help in building projects for those in need,” said Rabbi Katz.
“When the coronavirus hit, these kids and their parents had to rethink how they were going to spend their summer vacation,” Rabbi Aryeh Wielgus, the regional director of NCSY, shared. “Many were planning to go to a camp or visit another country, and now that it was no longer an option, the Orthodox Union and NCSY’s PC20 team went to work planning a summer that would not only engage our teens, but provide them with opportunities to impact the world at large. Since a cornerstone of our NCSY programming has always been chesed, we made sure that the programming we were providing would include a strong element of chesed and something our teens can take pride in, and feel good knowing they’ve had a positive impact in other people’s lives.”
The PC20 Long Beach NCSY relief mission saw the teens working alongside Habitat for Humanity staffers who helped them through the process, all done in accordance with social distancing and mask-wearing guidelines to ensure everyone’s safety. For Dennis Vink and Taice Brenner, two teen volunteers, Distenfeld fellows and recent graduates of Fair Lawn High School, their time helping to rebuild has been fulfilling and rewarding.
“It’s quite a bit of work,” Brenner shared, “but it’s good to be a part of something bigger and really help out the community.”
Vink added, “I’ve been on many chesed missions, and the common theme with all of them is that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from, we’re all giving back and connecting. At the end of the day, we’re all in this together and I feel we lose that narrative a lot nowadays.”
A typical day for the teens involved making scaffolding, putting up drywall or decluttering gutters. The teens also helped to feed local residents, planted vegetable gardens, enhanced the center’s library and helped in a street and parks clean-up project to help beautify the community’s neighborhood. New groups come and go every few days. For Vink and Brenner, one of the best parts was the reception from the locals.
“We talked to some locals the other day, and they were really amazed to see us,” Vink said. “Some of them had never seen a Jew before in their community, and they were amazed to see us not only as Jews, but people from New Jersey coming out to help.”
Brenner added, “By us doing this, it shows how easy it is to get started. It doesn’t just have to be jumping into building homes; it can be something small in your own community that makes an impact. It’s so easy to start and the hard work really shows.”
PC20 is still actively looking for volunteers for its many ongoing chesed missions. If you would like to sign up or learn more, you can do so at pc20.org.
Adam Samuel is a journalist from Teaneck. He blogs at www.adamssoapbox.com .
