Rabbi’s Message – January 5, 2023
Do you think Jewish educational experiences are important for our youth?
Do you want to be part of a Jewish community that will automatically award $500 towards such experiences?
If you answered yes, and are reading this, then the good news for you is that you already are! The Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton officially launched our Seeds Project: A Jewish Youth Experience. Essentially, this program provides $500 to any Jewish youth in the Greater Dayton area to use towards a Jewish educational experience like religious school, youth group, camp, and more. All you need to do is fill out a brief online application annually for your child(ren). And yes, that’s $500 per Jewish child (not per family) per year until they graduate high school that our Jewish community is investing in youth educational experiences.
While I’m certainly excited about this program as a parent of school-age children, I’m more excited to be in a Jewish community that recognizes the value and importance of youth experiences and how they translate into strength of Jewish identity and involvement as an adult. And the community is willing to put its money where its values are. This program came out of the Jewish Dayton Dreams Big initiative and was informed by studies through PJ Library and camping movements. The goal of the program is to support and encourage Jewish involvement among our youth by making local programs and “bigger ticket” Jewish experiences more accessible to all youth. Ideally, this will help to maintain involvement in the Jewish community through adulthood. As part of the advisory committee, we will be looking at enrollment data over the coming years in various types of programs and hope to see broader participation by those who are currently unaffiliated as well as better retention, especially at critical ‘drop-out’ points (namely post b’nei mitzvah and aging out of educational programs). This is the type of program I often hear communities dream about, but don’t “find” the funding for – we did. Even if you or your family are not directly benefiting from these funds, I hope you will join me in being excited to bring this project to fruition in our community, and I am confident we will all indirectly benefit as our youth blossom into proud, engaged Jewish adults in the years ahead.