Last Shabbos, I was in Cleveland Heights celebrating an Atideinu alumnus’s Bar Mitzvah. Dassi Gross, one of our current seniors, came over to where I was staying to play with my friend’s daughter.
“I don’t know what to do!” I shared with her, not doing a great job of hiding my despair. “What should we do about Atideinu? I am so sad it’s cancelled!”
“I know, me too,” she sympathized. “I wish we could still go!”
“I want to do something virtual, maybe.” I started brainstorming. “Like through ZOOM…video conferencing…?”
Her face lit up. “Yeah!” She exclaimed. “We should totally do that!” She thought for a minute. “You know what else we should do? You should send us home with all of the activities from now until Pesach!”
And so it began…Atideinu’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Motzei Shabbos, I spoke with our Program Director, Shira Schwarzmer, and we decided to call a few staff and children into Atideinu the next day to put Dassi’s idea into action. We hustled and bustled and worked well into the early morning until we had 40+ beautiful take-home bags for our participants, complete with instructions and everything needed for each activity!
Effective next week, we plan to resume some group programming, via ZOOM, and can’t wait to see our kids again.
Below are some pictures from the process of putting these care packages together, along with a few of the videos that we posted on our new web-page. Click here to watch all of the videos and learn about the entire At-Home program in detail!
Have a safe, healthy and uplifting Shabbos,
Chana Perel
Founding Director
Atideinu
