Jacob Lefton, Congregation Shaare Emeth

North Side Community School, located in the city of St. Louis, had the good fortune of having Jacob, son of Debbie and Michael Lefton of Creve Coeur, volunteer in its afterå-school gym program. What follows is Ben’s first-hand account of his mitzvah project.

One important Jewish value that I have learned is tzedakah, which means justice or charity. For my tzedakah project I choose to volunteer at North Side Community School. I first learned about this school when I visited it with my sister Sydney. It is an incredible charter school that depends greatly on donations. As you all know I am very into hockey. I had the opportunity to spend time with the kids in their after-school gym program helping with their floor hockey unit. Many of the kids had never experienced floor hockey and it was fun to see how much they enjoyed learning to play a new sport. I was also able to provide the school with various sporting equipment, including items for their floor hockey unit such as hockey sticks and protective goalie equipment.

Helping North Side was also a great fit for me because it happened to be my sixth grade community service project. I had the opportunity to spend time with the kids at their Halloween party helping out with the activities. 

Through

this experience I have really learned just how important it is to appreciate everything that I have. There is no way that you can ever spend time at North Side without leaving so happy that you were able to make a little difference in a child’s day. 

A student at MICDS, Jacob looks forward to spending more time at North Side in the future.