Giving

Thanksgiving Drive

TIME SENSITIVE/SHIR SHALOM: Please help the needy in the New Year! Food Pantry and Soup Kitchen dates

September 17, 2018 by • , ,

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Happy New Year Everyone!

If you would like to start off the New Year by reaching out to others in need, here’s your chance.  We really need your help!   

Please join our energetic, dedicated teams for one or more of the below-listed sessions (the more the better of course!).  A couple of hours of your time can truly make a difference to others…and be enjoyable too!   No experience is necessary of course.

Daily Bread Food Pantry: man the Pantry as needy clients shop.  Shir Shalom volunteers are responsible for the dates below:

 

  • Monday, September 24, 9:30 a.m. – 11: 45 a.m. (PRIORITY!)
  • Monday, October 29th, 9:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
  • Friday, November 30th, 9:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

Also, during the entire month of October, the Pantry we will need many more hands on deck on Monday and Friday mornings from 9:30 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. to help clients fill out brief/simple annual registration forms and to give out tickets for our  Thanksgiving food distribution event.   Please let us know if/when you can help.  The Pantry would be so grateful to you! 

  1. Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen: prep and serve a meal to hungry clientswith Shir Shalom volunteers and our partner church teams.
  • Sunday, October 7th, 2018, 1:15 – 5:00 pm
  • Sunday, November 4th, 2018, 1:15 – 5:00 pm
  • Sunday, December 2nd, 2018, 1:15 – 5:00 pm

Reach out to me at SocialAction@OurShirShalom.org. I’d be happy to provide more information/answer any questions!

Thanks so much Everyone!

All my best,

Debbie Landzberg

Social Action Committee Co-Chairperson

First Shir Shalom Annual Mitzvah Day

May 24, 2016 by • ,

Mitzvah Day was a Huge Success – 150 Enthusiastic Volunteers Helped the Community!

 

Congregation Shir Shalom of Westchester and Fairfield Counties’ “First Annual Shir Shalom Mitzvah Day” on Sunday, May 15th was a great success! Throughout this day of good deeds, more than 150 enthusiastic volunteers reached out to help a variety of groups and connected with each other along the way. Congregants of all ages, members of the teen youth group and friends from the community made this day a memorable one.

Volunteers worked on-site and off-site in Fairfield and Westchester County townships on varied projects such as collecting food for food pantries, washing and detailing a mini-bus and baking cookies for clients of the local soup kitchen. The work benefited more than a dozen charitable local organizations including: Kids in Crisis, Neighbors Link of Mount Kisco, the Daily Bread Food Pantry of Danbury, the Community Center of Northern Westchester, Women’s Center of Danbury, Family and Children’s Aid, SPHERE of Ridgefield, Ballard Green Residences, Laurel Ridge Nursing Home, Meadow Ridge Nursing Home, SPCA of Westchester, Hope’s Door of Pleasantville, Dorothy Day Hospitality House, The Crayon Initiative and local hospitals’ neonatal units.

The organizers thank their volunteers for donating their time and energy as well as these local vendors whose generosity made this event possible: Kohl’s, Gossett Brothers’ Nursery of South Salem, Posadas Landscaping, Katonah Nursery and Party Depot of Ridgefield. Stay tuned for next year’s event! Everyone is welcome!

A Pledge from the Heart

March 8, 2016 by • ,

A Yom Kippur 5776 Message from the Co-Presidents
PLEASE MAKE A PLEDGE FROM YOUR HEART!

Shana Tova! It was heartwarming and profoundly inspiring for all of us to be celebrating the first high holy days together as a united Jewish community.

During the high holy days, we embarked on a period of reflection and assessment, punctuated by new resolve and commitments. These days were in some fundamental way about change; about changing the way we think and act; about aspiring to do better; about taking a different, perhaps higher path.

This year has also about another extraordinary change: about bringing our area’s Jewish community together in order to build a more vibrant and more stable foundation for our future.
Looking back over the year that has just ended, it’s almost incredible how much change we’ve experienced as a community. But as Jews, we truly are one big family bound together by history, culture, belief, and tradition. Here, together, as one community, we can continue to observe our traditions, any of which have been handed down from generation to generation for over 5,000 years.

We noted from the very beginning that in building a new synagogue, there would be things we wouldn’t want to, we couldn’t change. Those were the things that define our essence; our uniqueness. We may all have different ways of expressing these attributes, but for us, the unique qualities of our legacy synagogues are our sense of family; our connectedness; our commitment to children’s education; our affection and respect for our clergy; our emphasis on music and song in our worship.
One of the values that resonated so powerfully throughout the early discussions and continues to echo so powerfully today is the commitment both legacy synagogues historically have made to extending membership to all who wish to join irrespective of financial ability. Opening the doors of our synagogue to all who seek to enter is one of those attributes that defines our essence; that is truly at the core of who we are. It is rooted in our sense of family and our sense of connectedness. It is something that cannot change.

Community and connectedness means that we need YOU, each and every one of you! We ALL have something special to offer! We need your talents, your imagination, your time and, your financial support! We need YOU to be truly engaged; to understand that without the commitment of your heart and your dollars, we each put at risk the very presence of a Jewish community! WE NEED TO LIVE OUR VALUES! The leadership of our legacy synagogues, including our rabbis and cantor, has demonstrated this commitment, and we are asking that every one of us do the same.

You may not be aware of the fact that our collective dues, tuition and fees only cover approximately 70% of our expenses; so, we must rely on your contributions at this time each year.
We’re counting on you to demonstrate your generous support as you have in years past. Whatever your circumstances, any amount and EVERY donation is greatly appreciated and needed!

On behalf of the entire board, Rabbi Burstein, Rabbi Reiner, and Cantor Katchko-Gray, may 5776 truly be a happy, healthy, peaceful, and prosperous year for each of you and your loved ones! G’mar chatimah tovah…a good final sealing!

Your co-presidents,
Gale Berman
Glenn Kurlander
Steve Landzberg
Hal Wolkin