It’s probably not a surprise that one of the things that floats my boat is getting kids excited about community service.  Last year, I came up with the idea to decorate placemats with children, and then send them to children in the hospital.  Everyone I spoke to, including the hospital, told me that this was a fantastic idea.  So, I got even more excited and followed up with another blog post on how to make the project even more successful.  Then, I was crushed to discover that the hospital had changed their policy and was no longer going to accept cards (or placemats) for their patients.  They were concerned about germs and also had to spend too much of their time making sure that the items didn’t contain inappropriate sentiments.  (For example, they didn’t want a terminally ill child to get a card or placemat that says, “Get Well Soon.” ) While it broke my heart, I understood.  And then I put away our placemats, waiting for Plan B.

In my final week of cooking camp at our local Jewish Community Center, the kids opted to do a Placemat Mitzvah Project for local seniors in an assisted living facility.   They especially loved that they could bring some happiness to these people during mealtime.

Here is one of my students talking about our project.  (You will probably need to turn up your volume.)