Fifteen juniors from Yeshivat Frisch headed to Houston from Tuesday November 13, to Sunday November 18, on a chesed mission organized through New Jersey NCSY. The mission included Rabbi Ethan Katz, regional director of NJ NCSY, Rabbi Zev Kahane, a Teaneck NCSY adviser who will be overseeing this year’s NCSY-Frisch chesed missions, Yeshivat Frisch Director of Chesed Programming Rabbi Joshua Schulman, as well as two NCSY advisers who happen to be Frisch graduates of the class of 2016, Nicole Aranoff and Dalia Cohen.

In Houston, the students worked with Repair the World and the disaster recovery organization SBP. They learned about how houses in Houston were destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, and worked on interior wall demolition and insulation installation. The students worked so diligently that they impressed the representatives from SBP, who told them that they had accomplished twice as much as expected. On Friday, the students volunteered with the Houston Food Bank, encountering various volunteer groups from local schools. “They said to us, ‘You’re from New York and New Jersey and you came all this way? That’s awesome,’” recounted Frisch junior Baila Shatzkes. “That made us feel really proud.”

The students spent Shabbat with the Meyerland community, bringing ruach to the shul and Shabbat meals.