This past year, we’ve learned that many of our students are food insecure. We started seeing at Shabbat that the same students were filling plates to go each time and always showing up to events that offered free food– well, all our events include food, but there was something different this year. ‘Hungry college student’ is a trope for a reason. In order to care for those students who need a little additional support, we began ordering extra food for Shabbats and then supplying to-go boxes to normalize and encourage students who needed it to take food home. And now, we’ve launched a program that ensures that Hillel of San Diego serves as a food access site for students to receive freezer stable healthy meals every day.
I am proud to also share that at our new Beverly and Joseph Glickman Hillel Center we’ve built a shower into the design of the building. We did this because we are learning that there are students who don’t always have reliable housing and so while we can’t house them ourselves, we can take care of pretty much everything else. Again, if we can provide young people with the tools and resources they need to be successful, then we are doing our job. The Glickman Hillel Center will be opening the first week of November and we need your help to finish building it! There are so many ways to get involved! Only two weeks left to buy a brick. Or you can leave your legacy through an array of other meaningful opportunities.
And this is just the beginning, we work to provide students with access to valuable Jewish community resources like Jewish Family Services and the Kindness Initiative. We see ourselves as part of a larger Jewish communal ecosystem and as a way to proactively ensure that our next leaders receive the foundational care they need to succeed.
What we do today matters. It matters for our young people and it matters for our future. Thank you for being a part of this remarkable Jewish community that cares and nurtures the next generation.
