The young women of the Camp Kulanu Maccabi Girls Travel Camp of Edison demonstrated this summer, with great effort and conviction, that chesed never takes a holiday.

One of the summer programs offered by the Rabbi Pesach Raymon Yeshiva in Edison, the Maccabi Girls Travel Camp for Girls takes girls ages 8-13 to places and activities like Six Flags Great Adventure, Adventure Aquarium, the butterfly garden at Cheesequake State Park, a birding experience at Liberty State Park, Sandy Hook, hiking at the Forest Reserve Center and more.

Under the guidance of Travel Camp Leader Emily Shapiro Menasha, the girls have also spent a great deal of time working to support others whose summer is not as cheerful. As Menasha explained, for the last three years the travel camp has made a chesed project a major feature of their summer plans. For summer 2021, the camp chose to raise funds to support victims of the Surfside condominium collapse in Florida.

Over the past four weeks the 20 to 22 girls in the camp helped plan, promote and run a car wash, a lemonade stand and a cookie sale to benefit the victims of Surfside. The campers were pleased to collect over $600, which they contributed to a special fund of the Jewish Federation of Miami.

Three girls felt strongly that the chesed activities were an important part of their summer. Maya Wasserman of East Brunswick, age 9½, said: “Chesed is important because we get to help a lot of different people. It feels good to know I can help people.” Sally Cypess of Highland Park, age 12, said: “Doing chesed is really important because it’s necessary for society to help people in need. If no one helped anyone then we wouldn’t have a society left.” Hadassah Ritch of Highland Park, age 12, said: “I like helping people in need because I envision myself in their shoes and I would want someone to help me if I needed it. One act of kindness can have a ripple effect.”

Camp Kulanu Director Rebecca Bick shared that the entire camp system is proud of the chesed work of the Girls Travel Camp. “There are great things going on at Camp Kulanu Maccabi Girls. The girls really enjoy the privilege of being able to help others, and Mrs. Menasha’s activities demonstrate not only the importance of doing chesed but also how much fun doing chesed can be.”

By Harry Glazer