Sarah Korn and Ana Dodson of the North American Federation of Temple Youth’s Missouri Valley Region (NFTY-MV) tell their story of raising more than $300 on a plane on the way to a NFTY event. This post originally appeared on NFTY’s Haiti relief site.
On Wednesday, January 13th, a massive earthquake and multiple aftershocks struck Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world. We were both very affected emotionally by the devastation that struck the people of the island.
We felt like we should do something about it, and so Sarah had the great idea of holding a mini social action project within Colorado NFTYites and raise money for the cause. On the plane to our regional Winter Chavurah, we both got up and announced to the NFTYites on our plane (members of Friedman Club Temple Youth Group and Temple Sinai Youth Group) our idea, and quickly attracted the attention of the other hundred passengers on the plane.
With the help of the extremely supportive flight attendants, we gained access to the loudspeaker and were able to tell the rest of the passengers our idea, and asked them for anything they were willing to donate, even if it was just a few dollars. We explained to them that the noisy teenagers in the back of the plane were members of a large Jewish youth group called NFTY; we also talked about the concept of tikkun olam and our adamant interest in helping to repair the world and give aid wherever it’s needed.
We expected to collect a decent amount of donations, but we were amazed
when people proceeded to put large bills into our collection bags. In
five minutes, we raised $311 for Haiti, out of 130 passengers! It is
incredible how generous people were and whole-heartedly supported our
spur-of-the-moment project. We gave the money to our youth director,
the wonderful Kara Lampe, who is sending the money to the Union for Reform Judaism, who will in turn send the money straight to Haiti.
We know that our contributions will make a big difference.