Giving Goals

Kehillat Israel Tzedakah Teens Philanthropy Program Has Donated $500,000 to Nonprofit Organizations Since 2008 Launch

By LILY TINOCO | Assistant Editor 

Among the synagogue’s myriad programs, Kehillat Israel Tzedakah Teens have been hard at work for the past 15 years, raising more than $500,000 to support nonprofit organizations, both nationally and internationally—and connecting teens to their faith along the way.

Launched in 2008 by Pam Solomon and Rosanne Zeiring, KITT is “a Jewish teen philanthropy program” for high school students in 10th through 12th grade. The program’s members are grouped together and tasked with addressing local and international issues by first forming like a board of a foundation with a mission statement.

KITT then meets monthly to: “develop a deeper understanding on how Jewish wisdom can help inform philanthropic decisions; learn about important local and international issues facing our world; research and understand how Jewish and non-Jewish organization are working to address these issues; send Requests for Proposals to applicable nonprofits, review grant proposals, raise funds and interview organizations; make difficult but critical funding decisions; and build a community of Jewish teens who are passionate about changing the world.”

“They first bring the topics they’re most interested in to their group and what they want to research,” Assistant Director of On-Site Programs for KI’s Jewish Experience Center Rachel Tichauer explained to the Palisadian-Post. “Then, they create a mission statement for their group based on those topics of interest and research organizations—everything from local here in the Palisades, all the way to international nonprofits, Israeli organizations—and they decide as a group who they are going to send grant proposals to, narrowing that down.”

“There’s a real democracy to the process,” Rabbi Daniel Sher added. “It’s all based on them coming to an agreement as a group, and that’s another big piece of it … You want to support everywhere, but you have to narrow it down and have it be a realistic process.”

KITT receives as many as 50 proposals and presentations from charities seeking donations each year, according to KI. The teens spend time reviewing grant proposals and interviewing different organizations before fundraising and deciding where they wish to allocate funds.

“The teens in this program are not doing hands-on social justice or social action work, they’re realizing the power behind supporting organizations that do the work in this world,” Sher said. “They are fundraising, they’re learning about what it means to be the philanthropic support behind nonprofits.”

Though facilitators are at-hand to help guide the teens, members of KITT take great ownership in the process—coming up with their own ideas to fundraise, advertise and put all the pieces together.

KITT raises funds to support their chosen organizations through a series of different projects—from babysitting to a phone-a-thon, an annual 5K run and more.

In 2021, a group dedicated their fundraising proceeds to Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. The teens raised funds to support ocean conservation  and combating climate change by selling bagels and coffee, hosting bake sales, and even moving their efforts virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to KI.

Previous recipients include Chai Lifeline, an organization founded to help children and families impacted by illness and crisis, and Vista Del Mar, which offers child and family services.

“These kids are changing the world,” Zeiring said on the KI website. “When I see them work together in this way, and discuss very important issues and deal with the most serious of problems that surround us every day … They are no longer kids, they become young adults. It’s a real [transitional] moment for them. They do the research. They learn about how to read a budget. They learn about how to evaluate a proposal, and at the end of their nine-month process, they really are a board of directors of a foundation.”

Most recently, KITT raised $40,500 for its 2023 grant recipients: Access Books, Action Against Hunger USA, CASA of Los Angeles, Clean Air Task Force, El Nido Family Centers, KIPP SoCal Public Schools, Lev LaLev Girls Orphanage, PATH, Sandy Hook Promise, Save a Child’s Heart and Wise Readers to Leaders.

“It shows the teens that if they put their time and energy and connections into fundraising, they can help nonprofits do some really amazing work,” Sher said to the Post. “And that’s a completely different kind of feeling of fulfillment when it comes to making this world a better place, and it’s really awesome that our teens are able to learn that.”

The program runs from September through April, ending with a celebratory award and grantee banquet, where the organizations are invited to attend and are presented with a check.

“[It’s] a really cool feeling,” one participant said, “to be able to meet these people and to see the look on their face when we give them this money.”

Tichauer and Sher told the Post that beyond the challenges the teens face by delegating, discussing and fundraising, KITT ultimately helps connect its members to the principles of Judaism through its philanthropic endeavors.

“Repairing the world—taking care of the world around us—is one of the top principles in Judaism,” Tichauer said. “Enabling our students to do good in the world is a top priority for us as educators. We have an end-of-year celebration, where they present the money—it quite literally brings tears to our eyes every single year. We are so immensely proud of our students.”

Sher said some of the members of the teams that were created 15 years ago have continued to work professionally with nonprofits, which Sher said is a “really amazing thing” to hear.

“We’re giving them a chance to enhance their identity,” Sher continued, “whether it be their identity and how they’re going to do good in the world, their Jewish identity … We have the opportunity to work with teens, meet them at their level, and give them a learning experience that is tangible and resonates further with who they are.”

Enrollment is currently open for the next teen-cohort, set to begin in September. They will meet on Sunday mornings from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., according to the KI website.

For more information, visit ourki.org/jec/teens.