33 Community Service Projects • The HOT Student Community Service Program (p. 33) • Community Service Program in the FSU (p. 34) The HOT Student Community Service Program gives high school and college students the opportunity to use their initiative to design and implement community service projects. HOT provides the “start-up” money for the projects, and when necessary, will assist monetarily in continuing to subsidize projects. Additionally, we have funded more than $100,000 of “Alternative Breaks” where college students at the Hillel chapters at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and at universities in Broward and Palm Beach counties spent their winter or spring breaks doing manual labor repairing blight caused by natural disasters or sheer poverty. At different times during the years we have partially funded trips to (i) El Salvador- poverty, (ii) Mexico – poverty, (iii) Nicaragua – poverty, (iv) New Orleans (several times) – hurricane victims, (v) Iowa – flood victims, and (vi) Ukraine – poverty. We chartered a bus to take 44 students (Jewish and non-Jewish) with supplies we purchased, from Gainesville to New York City for “two days helping Victims of Sandy” – clearing debris, sweeping, tearing down dry wall, tearing down decks, etc. Additionally, we subsidized two college students’ summer trips, one working as a volunteer physiotherapist in a Jerusalem hospital and the other spending two months working with a local organization working against poverty, hunger and disease in Uganda. We have also funded a Child Abuse Prevention Program (college students through various campus ministries, working one on one with young children at-risk), and a Community Living Renewal (college students cleaning up blighted neighborhoods). Our goal is that these experiences, in addition to serving the community today, will result in the students becoming caring and philanthropic members of society. I am typing in blue because it is without doubt the most leveraged of our programs. Not only do the needy get help, but also the ongoing lesson to the young adults doing the work produces young adults who have experienced what it is to help others. Now that is leverage. The items on the wish list for our Community Service Projects are: • $25,000 to subsidize the costs of sending 50 - 60 students on “Alternative Break” programs, foregoing their vacation time to help others • $20,000 for other projects students bring to us over the next 12 months