J.Team
The Jewish Youth Philanthropy Program, or J.Team is comprised of teens from 9th - 12th grade who share a common interest in social action. Meeting monthly over the school year, they will participate in nonprofit site visits and community service projects, while learning about Jewish values of giving.
Finally, J.Team members decide as a group where to donate over $8,000 of community donated funds. The teamwork approach to philanthropic giving makes this program a win-win for our community's teens and nonprofit agencies.
If you have questions or are interested in the 2011 session, please contact Elise Peizner, Teen Philanthropy Program Manager, at 206-774-2230 or EliseP [at] JewishInSeattle [dot] org.
Interested in checking out the experience you could have on J.Team? Take a look at the amazing J.Team YouTube video here.
Download the brochure and application.
J.Team Blog
Making a direct impact with J.Team
I joined the J.Team because of the direct impact we can make as a group. We personally meet with organizations and create connections with the people running them directly, which gives a really clear and accurate sense of where our money is going and who it is helping.
I think that the current J.Team group is extremely diverse, with inevitably different views on philanthropy. Although our values and beliefs are so diverse, we can use this to our own advantage to open each other's eyes with new ideas.
Visiting nonprofits in small groups is a great way to see organizations that we hand pick ourselves. We get to see and hear things that the group as an entirety doesn't. This can be a challenge, but it is easy to convey a positive message to the whole group since we were all so enthusiastic about our own nonprofits.
I felt that each group did a great job presenting their nonprofits to the whole group. They each emphasized how enthusiastic each nonprofit was about the J.Team and strongly conveyed the necessity of our grant to their organization.
This past J.Team session has made me think about how important it is to have confidence while speaking to groups; because your thoughts will not be conveyed the way they rightfully should if you talk as if they aren't important. It has prepared me for the allocation session, because we all need to get out of our comfort zones and speak up for what we want.
If I could, I would spend months trying to decide which nonprofits to fund. But I think that by the next session I will be comfortable with the decision about funding because at the end of the day, we are helping someone much less fortunate than we are and that's what we came here to do.
Emilie's 2nd year on J.Team
I joined J.Team in its first year. I heard about this program from a family member of mine and decided to get involved. I became interested in the program through the overall concept of philanthropy and working to give to back to the community for a greater cause. I have been in this group for over 2 years and I think that this group is very dynamic. We are able to communicate our ideas and are able to agree to disagree. I have been very impressed with our group so far and I am excited to see how our final decisions turn out.
I feel our presentation for Ultimate Peace went very well. I believe we were able to get our point across through our discussion with the entire group. We were able to convey our points and answer question thoroughly. We also received bracelets and necklaces from our meeting that we gave to the group.
During the presentations I enjoyed hearing about all of the different groups that are on the table for discussion surrounding our final decision with the allocations of our money. My favorite group that I learned about was Save A Child's Heart I really like what this group does by helping more than 2500 children with heart conditions. With J.Team we would be sponsoring the Youth Leadership Program. I like this because since I am in a leadership group, I would like to sponsor a leadership group as well.
When I am not in session with J.Team, it influences my decisions by the roles I take part in my school; it helps me make my decisions through what I have learned in J.Team.
I have a feeling that the decisions that we will need to make will have its difficult moments. Similar to last year I have a feeling that what we all want individually will need to be compressed in order to come out feeling good as a group. Overall I am very confident about our group's upcoming decisions!
Noah's thoughts on teenagers having a say where the money goes.
I'm a part of J.Team because I think it's incredibly interesting to learn about how different non-profits give back to the less fortunate. It's wonderful that teenagers in the Jewish Community get to have a say in where the money goes. Every time we visit a various charity I become more educated about what they're working towards.
When we met at Treehouse this month, I wasn't really sure what it was all about. To be honest, I didn't really understand why foster children needed so much help. But after being educated on the subject, I came to realize that they really do need so much charity after being taken from their unsuitable homes. Treehouse is doing an amazing thing for foster kids! They have a massive warehouse at their location that is a store completely for foster families and they help out foster children in so many other ways. It's obvious that they're making intense efforts to help out. My personal opinion is that J.Team should definitely donate to this non-profit. It's true that with our help, Treehouse will continue to do wonderful and effective things for foster kids and foster families.
Jake experience at Treehouse
This month J.Team met at Treehouse, which is an amazing non-profit that offers foster kids a happier and healthier life. From visiting them, we really could understand the dedication of the staff. Their commitment to helping foster kids was demonstrated by the beautiful store in the basement and the presentation given to us. Rabbi Weiner came to talk to us while we were at Treehouse and through his enthusiastic games and interactive lessons we were able to rank important factors that go into choosing non-profits. To sum up our visit to Treehouse I would have to say that it was not only educational but also really made us want to contribute what we can to those foster kids that need more than what they have, and do this through Treehouse. In conclusion J.Team had another successful visit to a great non-profit and also learned a lot during our visit.
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