Jewish Day School students help remove invasive plants from Idylwood Park

Students from the Bellevue-based Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle (JDS) recently dedicated a day of school called Mitzvah Day to helping area community service organizations and parks, including a Green Redmond Partnership project to remove invasive blackberries from Redmond's Idylwood Park.

May 24, 2010 1:15 pm

Students from the Bellevue-based Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle (JDS) recently dedicated a day of school called Mitzvah Day to helping area community service organizations and parks, including a Green Redmond Partnership project to remove invasive blackberries from Redmond’s Idylwood Park.

“This is a day our students and their parents look forward to all year,” said Rabbi Stuart Light, JDS’ assistant head of school. “Performing mitzvot or good deeds is an important piece of our curriculum at JDS and this is a unique opportunity for students to really see the results of their work as they have face-to-face interaction with the people they’re helping.”

In addition to the service performed at Idylwood Park, students collected and sorted food for area food banks, served lunch to clients at local shelters, led a Shabbat service at a Seattle retirement home, baked cookies for a teen homeless shelter, wrote letters to patients at Children’s Hospital and worked on Haiti earthquake relief projects.

“We work to teach our children that it is their responsibility to make positive change in the world and this is a lovely opportunity for them to learn how important and rewarding that truly is,” said Maria Erlitz, JDS’ head of school. “It’s wonderful to hear the students share their Mitzvah Day experiences with each other upon return to campus and to hear how inspired they are to continue to give of themselves in a real and meaningful way.”

This was the third annual Mitzvah Day at JDS. The campus is also home to the Jewish Family Service’s Eastside Foodbank. Each month, fifth grade students pack groceries and seventh graders cook food for the food bank clients.

Each year, second and sixth grade students also host a day-long Mitzvah Fair during which they present information about various charities to the school and collect money to support those organizations.

JDS is a preschool-eighth grade community day school which serves more than 260 children from nearly 30 zip codes in the area.

Visit www.jds.org for more information.