With the season of giving just around the corner, UF Hillel kicked it off with a bang. UF Hillel hosted the first annual Mitzvah Day on Sunday. Students and nonprofit organizations joined from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to work on different service projects. While waking up to a horrible loss the night before at the UF vs. South Carolina football game, played in Gainesville, spirits were still high for a long day ahead. With a turnout of about 50 students, the missions behind the organizations at the event ranged from helping the environment to creating cards for Israeli soldiers: Gift of Life, JSU Israel Week, Jewish Council of North Central Florida, Relay for Life and UF Hillel Arts.
While my organization, a local environmental film festival that also acts as a nonprofit, participated in the event, I too wanted to join in on helping other organizations. With all of the students divided into specific groups to help with select projects, I was assigned to work on three arts and crafts projects. Right up my alley, I created blankets for children, colored butterflies for a national project that will eventually be put together in memory of the lives lost during the Holocaust (similar to the Paperclips project), and pieced together Dolls for Darfur. The Dolls for Darfur project, the most meticulous project and my personal favorite, included gluing five to six tiny dolls on a pin that will eventually be sold to raise awareness about the genocide in the Sudan.
Walking out of the event — an event that brought students together who ordinarily just shuffle back and forth to class in the pool of thousands — I felt there are people like me who would trade a day of studying for a day of helping others.
Sarah Casey-Pollack, one of the staff coordinators for the event, created a Facebook video that explains the entire event better than words can describe.
