Uncooked beans and rice go flying through assembly lines for neighbors in need during a Falls Church synagogue’s annual Winter Mitzvah Day, this year on Jan. 19.
“It’s pure chaos,” said Alyssa Prince, the co-chair of Temple Rodef Shalom’s community service committee. “Imagine a room of 75 kids running with a bag of beans to the sealers and hoping that none of them spill. And, usually, most of them do.”
At the end of the day, TRS donates thousands of pounds of bagged beans and rice to a local homeless shelter and a food pantry.
While many synagogues hold congregational Mitzvah Days — typically in January to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. — what stands out about this one is the community’s sheer enthusiasm for service.
“It never gets old to see how excited a child gets about the simplicities of taking a scoop of beans and pouring it through a funnel [into a bag] … and knowing that it’s going to a charity,” Prince said.
The excitement isn’t reserved for the kids. Members of TRS young and old clamor for a spot in Winter Mitzvah Day — the shul building can accommodate 300 volunteers.
“There’s always a waiting list,” said Jon Stoloff, the co-chair of TRS’ community service committee. “We have a very large congregation, so it’s challenging sometimes, but everybody wants to participate.”
Prince and Stoloff coordinated about a dozen volunteer activities that are suitable for most any age. Volunteers bag apples, beans and rice, braid old T-shirts into dog toys, sort donated books, pack hygiene kits and make no-sew fleece blankets, all of which are given to local agencies. Younger children can draw pictures or make tissue paper flowers for seniors living at the nearby Chesterbrook Residences.
“We have activities [where] as long as they’re with their families, everybody can get involved,” Prince said. “That’s the way we view Mitzvah Day, that everybody has an opportunity to share their strength — there’s something for everyone.”
A fraction of the volunteers, particularly members of the shul’s young adult group Rodef 2100, lend a hand offsite. Some bag groceries at the Arlington Food Assistance Center, help organize and sell items at the Northern Virginia Family Services’ Clock Tower Thrift Shop or participate in a sing-along at Chesterbrook Residences.
Many of these organizations are ones that TRS works with year-round, but many of them can only accommodate five to 15 volunteers at once. “Being able to organize an event that can have 300 people, you feel that impact, that large connection, and that’s very powerful,” Prince said.
The congregation’s volume of volunteers helps local agencies receive necessary donations in bulk.
“We are one of the larger synagogues around, so I think we can provide a lot of the needed services,” Stoloff said. “The number of hygiene [kits] or snack packs that we can generate just in that one day can really help some of these organizations through some of the lean periods, because there are ebbs and flows in getting donations.”
The synagogue community has received positive feedback from its partner agencies. “They love Mitzvah Day. They’re just over the moon,” Prince said. “In these times, the need is so great. They know that they can count on TRS for this program.”
TRS has hosted Mitzvah Day for years, with the pandemic putting the “meaningful Jewish tradition” on a brief hiatus. But the TRS community brought it back in 2022, and Mitzvah Day has gone strong ever since.
“I think people really like volunteering as a family,” Prince said. “I’ve seen that people find it very meaningful. They want to expose their kids to … what’s going on in their community.”
Before volunteers jump into action on Mitzvah Day, Rabbi Jeffrey Saxe ties the programming to Jewish tradition, then a representative of each partner organization discusses how TRS’ work impacts the larger community.
“I think a lot of the families in our temple are very fortunate that they’re not facing the challenges that are happening around the community, so they want their kids to know the importance of helping others,” Prince said. “It’s also a nice way to do something together as a family.”
“People — families in particular — are so busy with work, the kids’ school, then extracurricular activities, and sometimes I think it’s hard for families to fit in this kind of thing,” Stoloff said.
Mitzvah Day provides a designated time on the calendar to give back to the community, usually on a day off from school and work. Once scheduled on Christmas Day, the community service committee moved the program to MLK Day.
“It’s really cute,” Prince said. “I’m usually standing on the sidelines with my head in my hands, being like, ‘There’s beans everywhere.’ But it all works out in the end.”
