On Sunday, November 6, the 19th Mitzvah Day, “Do A Mitzvah Today,” for Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey will take place. Mitzvah Day is a community-wide volunteer day during which participants throughout Northern New Jersey fulfill one of Judaism’s core values—tikkun olam, or repairing the world. Each year more than 1,000 volunteers fan out to dozens of sites around northern New Jersey to perform acts of kindness, charity and generosity to those in need. One aspect of Mitzvah Day involves various collections and drives for much-needed items that are collected and donated to organizations, shelters and other places that are in great need of these items.

Shaarei Orah, The Sephardic Congregation of Teaneck, is a collection-site drive for toiletry and dental items. Some of the items being collected are liquid soap, bar soap, shower gel, shampoo and conditioner, face and body moisturizers, face cleaners, baby powder, sunscreens, toothbrushes, floss and paste and shaving items. Only full-sized items can be accepted and all donated items must be new and unopened.

Some of the locations that will benefit from this drive are Bergen County Shelter for Homeless Adults in Hackensack, Community Hope, CASA (court appointed special advocates that work with children of the state) and CUMAC, as well as other food pantries in the area.

Items are being collected through November 13. To locate a drop-off site, please contact Amy Elfman at [email protected] or 917-576-7444. Drop-off locations are in Teaneck. To learn more about Federation’s Mitzvah Day and how you can participate, go to https://www.jfnnj.org/calendar/mitzvahday. To learn more about Shaarei Orah, go to sephardicteaneck.org.