Will Work For Food
Monday, October 5, 2009

by Steven Weinberg

At high holiday services I was reminded that Jewish people around the world will be celebrating Sukkot soon. Growing up as a Reform Jew in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I never really made the time to learn much about the holiday, to observe it for that matter.

It’s not like I was nonobservant when I was a kid. I went to Hebrew school and had a Bar Mitzvah, I stuck with religious school and was confirmed, I volunteered with my congregation at local soup kitchens and the homeless family shelter. I even made the ultimate sacrifice of skipping some of my beloved Michigan football games to go to services on the High Holidays. My parents raised me with Jewish morals and values, but at the time I didn’t really realize that they were a significant part of my life.

As a kid I was normally saturated from the high holiday season by the time Sukkot rolled around. I also spent my fall days more concerned about the ins and outs of the Michigan football team than building sukkahs in my backyard.

Beyond the whole sukkah thing and something about the harvest, I just didn’t “get” Sukkot.

Well, I’m now a 22 year old graduate of the University of Michigan and for the first time I think I’m catching on to what the holiday is all about. Throughout college I really start to define my Jewish identity. As an underclassman I attended some meetings of the University’s chapter of STAND--an anti-genocide group that focused on Darfur advocacy. After my sophomore year I was fortunate enough to go on a Birthright trip and visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, in Jerusalem. We spent hours winding through such a tragic part of our past—reading compelling stories and being drawn into powerful photos. I vividly remember exiting the museum onto a cantilever suspended over trees and wild flowers looking out onto Jerusalem.

Although the view evoked a sense of safety and pride at first, this was quickly replaced by thoughts of the thousands of children starving to death in Darfur that I had learned before my trip.  Although I was involved with STAND and local community service groups on campus before my trip, it was never with the connection to the concept of tikkun olam--healing the world.  That I discovered that moment staring out at Jerusalem.

I returned home understanding that my being Jewish isn’t determined solely by the classes I attended as a kid or how I observe the religion, but also by how I relate to Jewish morals and values. This discovery reformed my motivation for helping those malnourished kids in Darfur and being involved in local community service.

In the fall of 2007, I returned to Ann Arbor as a junior and worked with a friend to start an innovative nonprofit: WILL WORK FOR FOOD. Following this idea of “healing of the world,” we wanted to find a way to help our own communities while also raising relief funds to fight child malnutrition in Darfur.

WILL WORK FOR FOOD encourages people to volunteer in their own communities and to then ask a friend or family member to sponsor this work with a donation. The money raised then helps our affiliates, Doctors Without Borders, purchase and distribute life-saving nutritional supplements to severely malnourished kids in Darfur.

With the support of the University of Michigan Hillel, our dream for the WILL WORK FOR FOOD “volunteering locally to save children globally” initiative was born. In our first months we raised over $10,000 and stimulated over 700 commitments to local community service. We were also sanctioned by the Clinton Global Initiative for Universities and recognized as an international semi-finalist in the 2009 Dell Social Innovation Competition.

We now have an interactive website, www.willworkforfood.org, that we are using to launch our initiative to 25 different high schools and colleges campuses around the country. We also plan to start fighting child malnutrition in other regions of the world soon.

Interestingly, University of Michigan Hillel has provided seed funding and has housed the WILL WORK FOR FOOD initiative, but chooses not to put its name on our organization or take credit for helping with its inception. Why? Because tzedaka and tikkun olam are simply about doing what is right and what is needed, not getting credit for it. Jews are expected to give both tangible resources and time--no matter how much or how little you might have.

These experiences and lessons are what made me interested in finally learning about Sukkot this year. I racked my brain for memories from religious school, spoke with some more observant friends, and admittedly got a little help from Wikipedia.

I found out that Sukkot boils down to a celebration of the harvest, reaping the benefits of the seeds you’ve sown, and enjoying and appreciating what you have as a result of your past work.

During this harvest season, even more than in years past, there are an increasing number of people who have less and need more. Local food pantries are challenged to keep their shelves stocked and soup kitchens have lines out the door. To make matters a bit more daunting, child malnutrition in other regions of the world is expected to drastically increase as funding for international aid programs are cut.

So, whether you have any intentions of building a sukkah or not, give the holiday some thought. Rather than thinking about what you might need or want, enjoy and appreciate what all the seeds you’ve planted have grown into during the past year. 

Steven Weinberg is the co-founder and CEO of Will Work For Food.