J-Serve Teen: 'I Knew I Had to Give More'

Last Thursday, Jewish teens met at Adat Shalom in Farmington Hills to take part in J-Serve, an annual program to facilitate volunteer opportunities worldwide for Jewish youth.

The teens took part in a host of volunteer activities including sorting food at Gleaners Community Food Banks in Pontiac and Detroit, painting and sorting donations at the Baldwin Center in Pontiac, sorting seeds at Greening of Detroit and serving dinner at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries in downtown Detroit.

In a special guest column for West Bloomfield Patch, Shayna Shuman, 17, of Madison Heights writes about how J-Serve helped to better understand the Jewish community and her part in it. Shuman is a senior at Lamphere High and a representative of in Troy:

Volunteerism is a word that is not used often in my community. Many of my friends and classmates only volunteer to get community service hours. Sometimes it seems that they don't really care about what they are doing — they don't have the passion for the activity. Volunteerism means to help other people. I have a lot of fun with any type of volunteering.

Volunteerism means a lot to me for many reasons. I had a theory ever since I was younger — that people were put on this Earth for a reason. My reason is to help people. I have had experience helping people all my life and plan to do it when I get older as well. Volunteering with J-Serve is an opportunity for me to make new friends, and have experiences that I am unable to have else where. Volunteering is not just a thing for me to get volunteer hours or a hobby, it is my entire life, and I love every minute of it.

Being Jewish is very uncommon in my community, and Judaism is not reflected positively around my peers. I am the only Jewish student at my high school. The closest reform temple is the one I go to, which is about 30-45 minutes away. When I get the chance to interact with other Jewish people — I take it!

The first time that I  encountered the word J-Serve was in my sophomore year in high school. One of the two Jewish teachers at my high school gave me this t-shirt because one of the J-Serve events was held at his temple. He gave me the t-shirt at the end of class, so I still didn't know what J-Serve meant. I was thinking that no one at my temple would have this shirt and I thought it was a pretty unique shirt. I had to wear it to Sunday school because of how unique it was.I ended up wearing the shirt that next Sunday, and the director of lifelong learning at our temple pointed it out and told me a little bit about it and that we were going to start sponsoring it next year. The director knows me very well, and she knew that I would love it.

That next academic year, 2011, I went to my first J-Serve event still not knowing what was going to happen. That event changed my life. I was surprised to see that many Jewish teens have the same passion as I do — volunteering! I kept coming back to every J-Serve event after that. I love having the chance to get to know other Jewish teens from different denominations. I loved learning about why we are volunteering. It was such an amazing experience for me that I can't even describe because I just loved it so much. I knew I was in the right place and that it was going to be life changing for me. That first day I volunteered with J-Serve was the day I knew I had to do more.

I did more by joining the teen committee for J-Serve. Anyone that wants to join can. We had meetings before and after a J-   Serve event. J-Serve adults, and the teen committee members contact each other throughout the year by means of e-mail and Facebook.

This past Thursday, Feb. 23, was the first J-Serve that my temple co-coordinated with, and the first J-Serve I was teen co-captain. Being a teen committee member, and teen captain, I had to be there early. As I entered the doors of in Farmington, I had no idea what to expect. Every J-Serve is different in so many ways. I brought non-perishable items to donate like at every J-Serve. My director was running around as always, and all the committee members-teen and adult had a meeting of what to do when people came there and what to expect. Then I looked on the wall and found out that I was volunteering at the Greening of Detroit Garage, so I introduced myself to the adult chaperone/committee member. She gave me the information I needed to know. I was very busy checking people in and what not and then the rabbi introduced herself and talked for a little bit and then the welcoming activity started.

The welcoming activity was in fact a game in which people were put into groups within their project sites. The groups had to meet the people they were playing against, and they had a trivia challenge. The people that won moved on to the next round, and so forth.

The next thing that happened was that everybody got on their desired buses. We then had an activity on the bus to better get to know why we were volunteering that day. That activity involved the committee members giving snacks to a select few of people on the bus, and realizing that is what happens to people in Detroit everyday. They feel hungry and don't have the resources that we do. The adult committee talked about the theme of hunger to the bus group.

We then arrived to our destination — the Greening of Detroit Garage. Half of the bus got off before because they were volunteering at a different site. The people there told us about what Greening of Detroit does and who they are. I had the opportunity of writing vegetable names on popsicle sticks, and putting labels on envelopes and packing the seeds into the envelopes. The popsicle sticks are going to be put in the ground so the people that they give them to know where and what they were planting. We were packing seeds because most of the food people eat in Detroit comes from gardens, and the seeds that they plant in gardens are essentially from Greening of Detroit.

The other half of the bus came to our site to help pack seeds, and put labels on the popsicle sticks. We packed over 2,500 packs of seeds, and labeled more than 1,500 popsicle sticks that day. Everyone was so proud of what we have accomplished there.

My director accomplished her first J-Serve event, and it is not going to be her last. She definitely enjoyed her experience she had with J-Serve. I speak for everyone that volunteered or helped out to make that J-Serve happen, the time we had was extraordinary. We changed a lot of lives being there that day.

J-Serve is going to get even stronger by every J-Serve event we have.Now it is 2012, my second and last year of J-Serve, and I am really sad but happy as well, because I got to meet and make connections with the most amazing people. I have served as a volunteer, and a teen committee member, and plan to do more in the future if I can. It seriously doesn't feel like I have done J-Serve only two years, it feels like I did it for seven years. I love every minute I had with J-Serve and hope to somehow be involved with it even when I graduate because I want to be a part of the change.

J-Serve is a part of my life and I will always have the memories that I shared. J-Serve is definitely given me many opportunities to do something bigger than myself. I hope you will join the J-Serve event one time in your life, and experience their initiative of making the world a better place.

For more information on J-Serve Detroit, including the national day of service April 22, visit jservedetroit.org.