LAHC Giving Opportunities

LAHC Giving Opportunities

What Can Your Donation Provide?

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Shabbat and Holiday Programs
Heritage Programs
Educational Programs
Engagement Initiatives
Ongoing Events in Different Parts of Campus
Social Interaction
Additional Ideas

Shabbat and Holiday Programs

Shabbat Services, Dinner & Program

Shabbat, for thousands of years the secret ingredient of a cohesive Jewish community, is working its magic on today's generation of college students as well. Spending Friday night in a Jewish atmosphere, meeting other young Jewish men and women in a safe environment, eating a traditional, home-cooked meal together (particularly attractive when we offer it at no cost) brings hundreds of Jewish students to Hillels around the country. Shabbat offers an opportunity to blend social, religious, and cultural stimulation in one evening.
($1,000-$1,250 for each 100 students)

Women's Rosh Chodesh Celebration

Sisterhood is Powerful, and as Jewish women celebrate the monthly renewal of the moon in song, study, dance, and creation of art objects, they also renew their connection with the campus Jewish community and their own Jewishness. They are reminded that the Jewish people -- and Hillel -- cares about them as women.
($800 for 8 monthly programs on one campus)

Sukkah Kits for Smaller Campuses

The 7-day Sukkot festival is a great opportunity to engage students on campus in a visible, beautiful and sensual holiday. Using a pre-fabricated sukkah kit to build and decorate a sukkah on campus is both fun and instructive, and a week of programs and lunches in it with a lulav and etrog to wave, can build Jewish pride in an impressive way.
($650 per campus; lulav & etrog kits -- $700 for 10 campuses; lunch in the sukkah -- $300 for 50 students)

Hanukkah Dances, Parties, Dorm/Greek Candle Lighting

Hanukkah is another holiday hard to celebrate away from home, but Hillel spreads Hanukkah light all around the campus. By lighting candles in a different residence hall or Greek house each night, we bring the holiday to students and enable them to celebrate it among the friends they live with. Parties and dances also help to alleviate the overwhelming Christmas presence everywhere and reminds Jewish students in this difficult month that because of Hillel's efforts, their school cares about them as well.
($1,500 per dance)

Purim Celebration

Purim is an opportunity to laugh, have fun, eat (and bake) hamentashen, exercise Hebrew skills in reading the megillah, overcome self-consciousness and dress in costume, and celebrate to the music of a good klezmer group. Celebrations on individual campuses and city-wide traditionally draw hundreds of students for a night of shaking a grogger at the enemies of the Jewish people.
($1,500 per campus)

Subsidies for Pesach Seder

It is hard to be away from home on Passover. Hillel makes it more palatable with community Seders using the nationally acclaimed Hillel Haggadah, On Wings of Freedom, a delicious, kosher, traditional Pesach meal, and lively discussion with other students, faculty, and rabbis who know how to engage college students in the themes of the holiday. By keeping student costs low we can insure that a maximum number of students can attend.
($1,500 for each 100 students at Seder; lunches during Passover - $800 for each 100 students; dinners during Passover - $1,000 for each 100 students)

Yom Ha-atzmaut

Israel's Independence Day offers a springtime opportunity to celebrate the Israel students visited last summer or last year, or hope to visit in the years to come. Israeli dancing, a major Israeli singer, birthday cakes, speakers, and information about Israel programs brings the Land to life for Jewish and non-Jewish students alike.
($2,000 total)

Heritage Programs

Holocaust Programs

Jewish students want to feel connected to the events, suffering, and meaning of the Shoah and to share their growing understanding of it with non-Jewish students, sending the message through notable speakers that everyone needs to be vigilant to prevent a repetition. These are among the best attended events on campus.
($1,000-$2,500, depending on speaker)

Israel Program Fairs

As our part of the community effort to encourage more students to participate in the Israel Experience, we set up two or three Israel Program Fairs on each campus each year. Experienced counselors are present to advise students on the best summer or year-long programs for them. This is also an important opportunity to involve returnees from Israel trips in sharing their experiences and advice.
($1,000 per fair)

Jewish Awareness Weeks

Music, dance, speakers, films, crafts programs are all employed to bring Jewish consciousness to uninvolved Jewish students and to non-Jews as well. The message is: a lot of students are interested in Jewish life, it's fun, and, "if you're Jewish, it's for you."
($3,000-$5,000 per campus)

Educational Programs

Forum/Lecture Series

To help students keep their Jewish intellectual growth on a par with their general intellectual development, we invite significant speakers to campus for single lectures, panels, weekends, or Shabbatons. Topics range from Jewish perspectives on contemporary issues to the Middle East to spirituality and many more.
($5000 per campus)

Retreats with Visiting Scholars

At the Hillel Retreat House at the Shalom Institute in Malibu or at rented space at other Jewish camps we like to take students away from the city for intensive weekends with significant Jewish scholars. Through these retreats, students get to share a full Shabbat together, learn blessings and songs at mealtime, share Havdalah, and experience the scholar's method of observing these occasions as well. They become opportunities for role modeling as well as learning.
($3,500-$5,000 for each)

Leadership Training Sessions for Students

The Los Angeles Hillel Council Leadership Training Certificate Program has won the Haber Award for programming from National Hillel. It enables student officers of Hillel or Jewish student officers of Hillel or Jewish Student Unions to learn such skills as building a group, leading a meeting, public speaking, budgeting, as well as the Jewish dimensions of effective leadership.
($1,000-$2,500 total).

Regional Kallah

This long 4-day weekend of study, Shabbat celebration, culture and fun is a highlight of our calendar. It draws participants from the entire West Coast during the Presidents Day Weekend, who delight in meeting Jews from many campuses and diverse backgrounds in a relaxed and beautiful setting.
($5,000 total)

National Student Conferences Subsidies

Students used to being a "minority" on campus are greatly energized by attending national conferences which draw hundreds of Jewish students from around the world. International Hillel's Leaders Assembly in August and the Spitzer Forum on Policy Issues held at the NJCRAC Plenary in the winter, the National AIPAC Conference and the CJF General Assembly, all have a powerful impact on Jewish students, broadening their horizons, and deepening their understanding of the importance of their Jewishness, creating Jewish relationships with other students and world Jewish leaders which tie them to an international network of Jewish contacts. Returning to their home campus, students are usually motivated to intensify their campus Jewish activity.
($500-$750 per student)

Professional Development for Hillel Staff

As students need opportunities for renewal, so do Hillel staff. Some staff members come to Hillel work directly from college, without any professional training; others have trained in professional areas different from what campus work demands. One shot or weekend seminars, ongoing courses, and summer programs, are needed to enable our diverse staff to give students the kind of sophisticated professional guidance they deserve at this crucial time in their lives. ($500-$750 per person)

Engagement Initiatives

For years now, Hillel has recognized that we cannot sit in our Hillel houses and wait for students to walk in. Active students and Hillel professionals must fan out on to campus and encounter students where they may be found; on campus walks, in dormitories and Greek houses, in class, in other activities, at the other end of a telephone, at their computers, opening their mail. The more outreach vehicles we can find, the better we may engage uninvolved students in exploring their own Jewishness.

Student Engagement Specialists

Formerly called Jewish Campus Service Corps Fellows, Student Engagement Specialists coordinate the campus outreach effort, make themselves available throughout the campus, and are part of a national network sharing successful engagement programs with each other. Recent college graduates, they are able to mingle effectively with students only one or two years their junior, to serve as inspiring role models for the importance of Jewishness, and to spread their enthusiasm infectiously throughout the campus Jewish community.
($35,000 per campus)

Newsletters

Sending out a newsletter with articles by students, rabbis, and other staff on current Jewish and campus issues as well as a calendar of upcoming Hillel events not only informs students but engages them as well. We often include a question in the issue, and an outreach worker will call readers and award prizes for the correct answer - prizes which may include discounted or free admission to Hillel events. Students report that they enjoy receiving the publications and benefit from them even if study, work, and commuting prevents them from coming to Hillel events. ($3,000 per issue)

FreshFest

Borrowed from Northwestern Hillel and first tried locally at USC in 1996, FreshFest encourages first-year students to move into the residence halls on Friday, spend Shabbat with Hillel and meet other first-year students. This created a strong bond between the participants who kept returning to Hillel events for reunions, bringing other students with them. They have created a Jewish core in their residence halls, around which we are building our Dorm Outreach efforts.
($2,500 per campus)

Welcome Back Barbecues and Open Houses

First-year students and returning students in their first two weeks are open to everyone who reaches out to them, and these welcome back events typically draw between 50 to 100 students per campus.
($500-$1,000 per campus)

Phone calls and Email

Communicating with time-starved students by phone and the Internet is very productive -- but it takes staff to do it, as well as training in the use of Web sites, chat rooms, and the like. As email becomes the universal means of campus communication, Hillel's use of it will greatly increase our impact.
($1,500 per campus)

Ongoing Events in Different Parts of Campus

Dorm Havurah Networks

Organizing events in the residence halls - study breaks, Havdalah services, Shabbat and Hanukah candle lighting, informal dinners - provide a Jewish dimension to daily dorm life, enable students to share Jewish experiences where they live, without having to go to the Hillel building, and let them share these events with students in whose midst they feel most comfortable, viz., friends from their residence halls. These events also enable them to find out who else in their dorms is Jewish and establishes a good network for further socializing and sharing.
($350 per campus)

Greek Shabbat and Other Programs

Offering Jewish programs in fraternity and sorority houses serves the same purposes as a dorm network for Jewish Greeks. Events planned with more than one Greek house also lets Jewish students network with other Jews throughout the Greek system. Outreach workers comfortable in the Greek environment are required.
($500-$1,000 per program)

Jewish Filmmakers Forum/Theatre Arts Group

Bringing together students with common interests helps them see the Jewish dimensions of their subject, meet Jewish professionals in their field, and network socially and "professionally" with Jewish peers.
($3,000 per campus)

Programs for Social Interaction

Encouraging Jewish students to feel comfortable with each other in social settings lays the groundwork for them to seek out Jewish mates when they are ready for marriage. Among the social programs Hillel offers are the following:

City-wide Dances

Three dances spread throughout the year are presented at the University of Judaism, midway between the City and the Valley. Three to five hundred students attend each of these, giving us their names and phone numbers for continuing contact. These events are great successes, offering wide scale opportunities for social networking, and exciting students at the sheer number of their peers gathered in one place.
($1,500 per dance)

On-Campus Hillel Dances

Limited to a single campus, these events serve much the same purpose as the city-wide dances, and give students entree to a network of social contacts they can easily renew on their own campus.
($500-$1,000 per campus)

Lounge Nights

These weekly programs at Hillel encourage students to "hang-out" together, eat, schmooze, listen to music and sometimes a speaker, invite old friends and meet new ones. The Hillel building throngs with people and gives Jewish students a good feeling about being together with other Jews.
($100-$250 per program)

Social Lunches

There is such a thing as a free lunch at Hillel. Students can use their campus meal contracts to eat lunch at Hillel without charge, giving them a shot of Jewish connection in the middle of their day. They bring and meet friends, sometimes listen to a speaker, get Hillel business done, and relax in a Jewish atmosphere.
($150 per program)

Athletic Leagues

Creating softball, volleyball, and basketball leagues lets Jewish students get exercise and have fun in a Jewish environment. When they play Jewish students from other schools they make new contacts, and when they play non-Jewish teams on campus they broaden their acquaintance with peers from other groups. Sports offer Jewish social connections in a non-threatening atmosphere.
($1,000 per campus)

Interfaith & Intergroup Relations

Over the years Hillel has developed successful dialogue groups between Jewish students and Muslims, Catholics, and Blacks. These groups require skilled professional advisers and a great deal of patience, but they can be very rewarding. Students who get to know each other and learn about each other's heritage in these dialogues are usually willing to form coalitions to advance mutual interests on campus, and in times of crisis are usually able to let the bonds already forged help diffuse the immediate tensions. They help all participants to break out of their ethnic isolation and yet also increase their sense of good feeling about their own identity.
($500-$10,000 per campus)

Additional Ideas

Student Initiatives Program Fund: $15,000
Prayer books and religious articles: $10,000/all campuses
Mentor program for graduate students: $15,000
Marketing/PR consultant: $12,000-15,000
Computer/email/web consultant: $15,000

Do it yourself programming

Do you have a great idea for a Hillel program that you would like to support? Contact us about your interest or idea.