Julia Ullman 1:3

Monday and Tuesday were extremely busy days in the office.  I feel that at every moment, I am in the middle of 15,000 different tasks.  That’s just how programming and Jewish education work around the temple, I guess. I wanted to include some pictures of the Mitzvah Day program on here.  We downloaded all of them from the cameras today, and these are some highlights... (I APOLOGIZE PROFUSELY...I could not for the life of me figure out how to rotate these vertical images on Blogger...)

This is my sister and others working on one of the projects.  They were decorating activity bags for children who are long-term patients at Cleveland Clinic hospitals.  Many of the students on Sunday especially enjoyed this project because they felt really connected to the kids in the hospital, writing them pictures and imagining their interests and personalities. 

This picture is a bunch of my friends who were working on a huge sort of wound care supplies for MedWish international.  Ari is a pre-med student, so he particularly enjoyed this activity.  This picture (and the next) is a true testament to the fact that this was an intergenerational, congregational effort and included people of all ages.

The president of the congregation and her husband helped out too.  Her husband wore a sandwich sign to promote the various projects the temple is involved in both during that program and throughout the year.   The outfit was quite a hit!

On Monday and today (Tuesday), Beth and I worked on organizing the crazy aftermath of Mitzvah Day.  We have organized the materials, completed projects to be donated, extra supplies, etc. and carried them to their proper homes in the building.  There is still a little more work to be done, especially to coordinate who will be bringing the donations to the various organizations.  For now, most of the completed projects are sitting on what would have been my desk…

In addition to the Mitzvah Day stuff, I have begun to venture to THE To Do list.  I formatted and proofread over 100 progress reports for Religious School students this morning and printed them out.   Later this week I have to stuff them into envelopes and send them out. 

Today, I had the unique opportunity to accompany my rabbi on a visit to a congregant in the hospital. She had some surgery yesterday and he wanted to show me what it is like to visit as a clergy or chaplain.  I got to ride in his really cool little black convertible (SO MUCH FUN) and shadow him for the afternoon.  It was a nice little break from the office work, but also a really powerful learning experience.