Adat Shalom is launching a major new social action initiative, one that promises to become a signature program for our community and one that I hope will eventually include most of members in some way. With the help of Yachad (the Jewish Community Housing Development Corporation of Greater Washington), Adat Shalom is forming a partnership with the Living Word Church, a non-denominational African-American church located in the Far SE/SW-Belleview neighborhood of Ward 8 in DC, one of the most economically disadvantaged sections of our city.
There are three parts to the initiative. First, we want to build a real relationship with Living Word, based on mutual respect and understanding. We will do this through a series of events in which we share our faith traditions. First, on January 26, members of Living Word plan to attend the Shabbat service and Oneg at Adat Shalom. Next, members of Adat Shalom will attend Sunday services at Living Word on February 24, followed by a tour of the church’s neighborhood and the social service facilities associated with the church. Members of Living Word will join us at Adat Shalom for our social action seder on March 24. Together we will focus on the meaning of freedom in our two cultural and religious traditions. On Sunday, April 28, the two communities will work together during Sukkot in April. Yachad, which coordinates Sukkot in April, is currently looking for a suitable home in the vicinity of Living Word for us to renovate together. We invite you to suggest other programs for the future.
The second part of our partnership revolves around Lydia’s House, the social service agency associated with Living Word. There are a number of programs at Lydia’s House that have opportunity for our involvement. Among these are two ongoing educational programs.
Lydia’s House uses the church facility to provide after-school supervision and tutoring for 50 children, ages 4-12, from 4-6 PM every school day. Although most Adat Shalom members are at work during this time and although traffic makes a late afternoon trip to Far SE/SW particularly daunting, we hope that some members will volunteer at the after school program. Volunteer opportunities include both regular, ongoing tutoring work and one-time offerings, such as a crafts class, a health discussion or a concert.
Lydia’s House also runs a GED (graduate equivalence diploma) preparation program for high school dropouts from 11-1 each weekday, with computer classes offered in the morning before the academic program. The GED program is primarily computer-based and self-paced. However, the students often need help when they come up against material that they do not understand. Volunteers would to help students with English (especially writing and grammar), with mathematics, (algebra, geometry, trig and calculus), the core sciences (biology, chemistry and physics) and/or history. Virtually all of us are qualified to help with basic English writing skills. Math and science may require more specialized knowledge.
These students, many of whom have never held a job, also need preparation for the workplace. This includes coaching them on what to wear, helping them practice for interviews, teaching them how to write resume and many other basic workplace readiness skills. Because virtually all the GED students became parents in their mid teens, the director of Lydia’s House hopes that members of Adat Shalom will also serve as mentors in basic parenting skills.
The third aspect of our relationship with Living Word involves the area’s Commercial Development Corporation (CDC), which is working to lift this corner of the city out of its economic desolation. Without a grocery store, a sit-down restaurant or many other businesses we take for granted, this area of the city has few jobs or services. With the help of Yachad, the CDC is acquiring a building to use as a small business incubator. This also the only "green" CDC in the city, with a special focus on the "brown fields" (environmentally degraded areas) in this neighborhood. One immediate environmental goal is to ensure that polluting entities clean up Oxen Cove and the Anacostia River tributary running through the neighborhood. Both the environmental work and the small business set-up work take legal, business, and even medical, expertise. What we bring to this partnership is our incredible wealth of professional talent. This is a small corner of DC where Adat Shalom can really help make a difference.
Our involvement in this CDC represents an important new level of Tikkun Olam for Adat Shalom. This partnership allows us to move beyond providing the basic necessities of life to needy individuals and even beyond helping individuals gain education and job skills. In our work with the CDC, we will be helping to change the physical and economic environment of a neighborhood.
We all know the saying "If you give someone a fish, you feed that person for a day. If you teach someone to fish, you feed that person for a lifetime." Up until now, most of Adat Shalom’s social action programs have been analogous to giving people fish. At Lydia’s House, we will be teaching people how to fish. In working with the CDC, we will be helping them build a marina and buy their own boats so a whole community can someday become a thriving fishing village.
Launching this program reflects six months of hard work and incredible dedication by Social Action co-chairs Andy Levin and Louise Milkman). Rabbi Fred and Gerry Ehrenstein (VP with the Social Action portfolio) offer continued guidance and support. Jayme Epstein, our longtime congregational coordinator for Sukkot in April, is lending her energy and enthusiasm to this new program both as a new employee of Yachad and as an Adat Shalom volunteer. Special thanks and recognition go to Audrey Lyons who is both a member of Adat Shalom and Executive Director of Yachad. Acting as the matchmaker, Audrey not only convinced us that we had the resources to get married and that we really wanted to get married now, she found us a suitable and eager partner and has chaperoned all our meetings so that we would get off to the best possible start in this promising long-term relationship.
Shalom uv’racha (peace and blessing),
Judy Gelman