GOALS

The Goals of the Committee are:

To provide the adults and youth of the congregation with opportunities to learn about social and political issues of the day.

To facilitate opportunities for maasim tovim (good deeds) for all members of the congregation and develop and support projects for the congregation to work actively towards Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).

To facilitate opportunities for building bridges between the different movements of Judaism as well as between faiths in working towards Tikkun Olam.

To work toward incorporating actions and consideration of Tikkun Olam into the culture of the Beth Shalom community.

Social Action/Mitzvah Opportunity:

Join Temple Beth Am in a Sunday meal program for our neighbors who are homeless in the Lake City area.  The dinners are coordinated by the Seattle Mennonite Church in Lake City, and held in their building on the north side of NE 125th Street just east of Lake City Way.  Four different congregations take turns hosting dinners.  Temple Beth Am has been providing dinners at SMC on the third Sunday of each month for a year.

CBS members and TBA are already cooperating on the Homeless 2 Renter program, and further work together would strengthen our ties to each other and our common Jewish values.

Email coordinator/TBA member, Sally Kinney at ski9266503@aol.com or phone (206)364-4866 if you’re interested in participating. We cook menu items at our homes and bring them to the church.  One dish per month or whatever you can manage would be very welcome.  You have the option to bring your dish and stay, or drop off your dish – whichever you like.  Our guests appreciate both the food and the company.

Looking for a way to help Darfur refugees?

Darfur refugees are often attacked or raped when leaving camp in search of firewood for cooking.  Jewish Worldwatch is purchasing solar cookers for refugees to help minimize this risk and make cooking easier for them.  If you are interested in helping, send a check made out to Jewish Worldwatch (a 501(c)(3) organization created by a coalition of synagogues) to CBS and the social action committee will forward your check.

Kiddush Club Yard Waste

We are now using bio-degradable garbage bags during Kiddush and throwing our used plates and leftover food into Yard Waste instead of garbage.  Plasticware cannot go in these bags.  The two cans with the new bags will have signs showing that they are Yard Waste.  This will help the shul to save money plus help the environment with compost instead of garbage. Please notice the different waste cans and do your part to separate the plastics from the yard waste.

Homeless to Renter Program
Homeless to Renter (H2R) is a Temple Beth Am initiative to help end
homelessness. We at CBS can support this effort, and perhaps in time,
replicate some of their work. Here is how it works. H2R is supported by
the TBA Social Action Committee, but is its own committee and reports
directly to the TBA board. The goal of H2R is to move families out of
homelessness by subsidizing their move into permanent housing. In order to do this, the committee raises funds and works through a nonprofit organization, Mutual Interest. Mutual Interest takes referrals from social service agencies, and then works with those families and landlords to get them into housing. So, the main H2R activity is fundraising. TBA has done this in a nice way. For example, they recently held a lovely Succot event, which featured a speaker from Mutual Interest, time in the sukkah with Rabbi Beth speaking on homelessness, an auction of cakes constructed to look like houses, and a music performance. It was a great combination of a social and an educational activity and raised a significant amount of funds for the program.

What Can We Do?
At the current time, anyone who wants to donate to H2R can make a tax
deductible donation to Temple Beth Am--H2R, and send it to Temple Beth
Am, 2632 NE 80th Street, Seattle 98115. H2R members are eager to see this effort replicated at other congregations. We may not be able to do that yet. My understanding is that they are considering some kind of convening
effort in the Jewish community that would educate on homelessness issues, including current initiatives such as the King County Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness.