SA/TO By Month
Program Ideas: April

Programs:

1. Impact Theater
   Get a group of USYers together and put on a skit for your chapter on current issues concerning environmental issues we face in North America. Write a skit, rehearse it, and perform it at your weekly meeting. Feel free to invite outsiders to it too!
2. Beach Preservation
   This program is for people on the coasts or near bodies of water. Today we are faced with major problem of beach erosion. There are many projects in the workings to help preserve these beaches, such as putting sand bags on the eroding seashores. If this is something that you take interest in, contact your local officials and find out if there are any projects being taken on in the community, or if there aren’t if you could start one to ensure that future generations can continue to enjoy the beaches like we do.
3. Walk for a Cause
   By holding a walk for a cause you will be able to raise money to help clean up the environment for all of us. You can raise money by getting pledges per mile (in the U.S.) or kilometer (in Canada), or just flat out donations. This walk is something that can be opened up to the entire community and also serves as a social event.
4. Adopt-A-Highway
   Pick a section of a highway to “Adopt.” This can be a highway that has a lot of traffic and will provide for a connection between the USY chapter and its community. As a chapter, dedicate some time (daylight hours, for safety purposes!) to clean up the litter finds its way onto your highway.
5. Recycling Projects
   Make sure that people care about the world’s finite natural resources and start recycling projects in your local community. Encourage your family and friends to bring their recyclables to your USY chapter so that they can be brought to a nearby recycling center. (A suggestion would be "Sodakah", a way of raising tzedakah money by getting the returns on soda bottles.) Additionally, you may also want to volunteer at the town Recycling Center in which case it is important to contact them and they would be more than eager to receive your donations of time.
6. Clean Ups
   Beautify your surroundings and help participate in making the Earth more beautiful. Help out at your Synagogue or JCC or even work with Habitat for Humanity and weed, paint, clean up trash, or do whatever else they need to improve the conditions of the surrounding facilities.
7. Cemetery Maintenance
   Kavod hamet. Honoring the dead is ideally central to the Jewish religion and often neglected. It is very important that as a Jewish community we pay our respects to those who passed on and go to Jewish cemeteries which have been neglected to help clean them up. You can plant bushes, rake leaves, collect trash, and basically beautify the grounds, giving our ancestors the respect they deserve.
8. Geniza
   Build a community Geniza to build holy objects in. Get flowers, benches and trees and invite the chapter to in building it up. Plant seeds and watch them flourish as the Jewish community will around this Geniza. (A Geniza is a patch of land in which Jewish people will bury things with HaShem’s name in them, such as a torah or a siddur, and other religious articles such as a tallit and/or tefillin. When a person loses an appendage, these are also buried in the Geniza.)
9. Picnics
   Hold a picnic in a park. Make sure to take in the beautiful surroundings in nature. You may play frisbee or football while enjoying a nice lunch and then conclude with picking up all the rubbish that you find on the grounds.
10. Israel
    What can be better than helping Israel? One of the easiest ways to help Israel flourish is by planting a tree there. As a USY chapter you can purchase as many trees as you wish to be planted on the USY Hill: 16 and forever leave your impact on Israel. Not only will you be helping out its ecosystem, but you will also be ensuring that the future of Israel will be shaded and beautiful.