30 Community Service in the FSU HOT has always looked to partner with organizations that encourage community service. We think of this as the ultimate leverage - teaching people the importance of helping others, while simultaneously giving help to the needy. On the page facing this page (page 29 for those of you reading this online) you have read about our how we have partnered with Hillel chapters helping college students learn to want to, and actually, help others. Two years ago, we found the right partner to work with in the former Soviet Union (FSU). HOT committed to a 3-year project that encourages scores of young people to understand the importance of helping those less fortunate. We are piggybacking on work done over the last 25 years in the FSU by our new partner, the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). For the past 17 years, JDC has successfully run a program (“Metsuda”) in the FSU training young people to give back to their communities. HOT’s 3-year grant is primarily used to fund 2 part-time coordinators, one located in Rostov-on-Don and the other in Krasnodar. The coordinators are working with 68 graduates of the JDC program to identify local unmet community needs, to create work plans, activities, action groups, seminars and other events. The participants in the HOT/JDC Program have organized more than 40 new projects. In Rostov-on-Don the volunteers cleaned and beautified both a kindergarten and an animal shelter and renovated a local youth club for children with special-needs. In Krasnodar, volunteers helped repair a special-needs kindergarten and the home of an elderly Jewish resident. Additionally, and most importantly, they are creating an active network of community leaders who will take on the training of future leaders and volunteers. While HOT’s basic funding is to encourage volunteerism, several projects require programming costs and make up a wish list of: • $1,500 Birthday Parties and holiday events for children at risk or with disabilities • $3,600 Mestuda alumni intercity exchange • $4,538 for food, medicine, and other necessities for 18 seniors @ $21 a month • $5,540 for 1,385 hours of homecare (bathing, cooking, cleaning) @ $4 an hour