Twenty schools representing more than 3,000 students participated in this initial fund raising/public awareness project. Innovative and creative activities were created by each school educating students about the importance of providing daily hot lunches to children in Israel. “Children Helping Children” became the motto of many of the schools.
The Meir Panim volunteers and staff worked hand-in-hand with each school providing flyers, bookmarks, donation envelopes and any other printed materials requested. In addition, video presentations were made along with individualized meeting with classes to encourage participation.
Several individual classes were rewarded with pizza parties as a prize for raising sufficient funds to provide a minimum of five Israeli students with hot lunches for one month. In addition, the Bolton Street Synagogue Religious School was the Grand Prize winner for the school with the greatest percentage of student participation. All participating schools were acknowledged for their generosity in a “Thank You” ad in the Baltimore Jewish Times.
Plans for Meir Panim Day 2008 are underway with plans to increase participation by 100% with the addition of schools in the Washington, DC, VA and suburb Maryland areas with similar projects projected for many other cities across the U.S.
Participating schools:
Adat Chaim School Reisterstown, MD
Baltimore Hebrew Schools Baltimore, MD
Beth El Schools Baltimore, MD
Beth Israel Schools Owings Mills, MD
Beth Tfiloh Dahan Schools Baltimore, MD
Bolton Street School Baltimore, MD
Columbia Jewish School Columbia, MD
Gesher LaTorah Baltimore, MD
Har Sinai School Owings Mills, MD
Kehilat Shalom School Gaithersburg, MD
Krieger Schechter Schools Baltimore, MD
Temple Oheb Shalom Baltimore, MD
Temple Beth Shalom Arnold, MD
Yeshivat Rambam Baltimore, MD
Weinberg Academy Randallstown, MD
