We are honored to work with you as you plan for your Mitzvah Project. It’s important that you choose a cause you care about. JF&CS serves a wide range of people with different needs and our Mitzvah Project options reflect that, so we hope you can find a cause here to support.

View a list of options below or let us customize the right project for you by contacting us at volunteers@jfcsboston.org or 781-693-5007.

Use Your Project to Help

People Experiencing Food Insecurity

• Organize a Family Table collection bin at your school or synagogue.
• Advertise food collection to friends, classmates, and family.
• Collect your synagogue’s designated items to meet a goal amount.
• Count and sort donations using Family Table’s sorting guidelines.
• Help organize and prepare for Family Table distributions.
• Bring donations to Family Table once a month.
• Make centerpieces for your Bar/Bat Mitzvah: arrange shelf stable foods from our food request list to use.
• Gift food donations by asking for a food donation from each Bar/Bat Mitzvah guest.
• Gift monetary donations by asking that donations be made to Family Table in honor of your Bar/Bat Mitzvah.

Older Adults

• Raise money so that a person with Parkinson’s disease receives a year’s scholarship to our Okonow Parkinson’s Family Support dance program ($600 per scholarship) or our Parkinson's Family Support Tremble Clefs chorus ($250 per scholarship).

Holocaust Survivors

• Make homemade gifts, decorate gift bags, and write cards for Holocaust survivors.
• Perform at Café Hakalah, a monthly social gathering for Holocaust survivors.
• Creat Caring Cards for birthdays and other occassions to bring comforting joy to Holocaust survivors.

Basic Needs

• Collect back to school supplies or run a backpack drive.
• Organize a gift card drive for families in need or victims of abuse.
• Collect toiletries for families in need or victims of abuse.
• Raise money/awareness for Journey to Safety’s TeenSafe program to prevent teen dating abuse.

People with Disabilities

• Help JF&CS make it possible for people with disabilities to enjoy the Jewish tradition of welcoming Shabbat by baking challah and then delivering it on the Friday of the Shabbat dinner to a local Supported Living house.
• Help set up, serve dinner, socialize, and assist with clean up at our monthly Shabbat dinner at a JF&CS Residential home for program participants and residents.

You can learn more about Mitzvah Projects by contacting our Manager of Volunteer Services, Ava Harder, at volunteers@jfcsboston.org or 781-693-5007.

JF&CS helped us understand that while being a mom is never easy, being a teenager and providing for your kid(s) during COVID-19 is even more stressful for these clients. We learned that we could purchase backpacks and fill them with all kinds of fun stuff for the three-year-olds who would be graduating from the Healthy Families program. Although this project was meant to be work, it was so satisfying for the both of us to know that we were helping other people, other families.

- Talia Wilk and Leah Farb, two teens who completed a Mitzvah Project to support the Healthy Families program

Read more about their project on our blog here.