2012 Channukah Shopping Spree

The 2012 Channukah Shopping Spree was a huge success! Thank you to all who donated to the event. Our HAMC parents are going to be receiving some great presents this Channukah! 

 

Recap: The Walk for Dawn

We wrote not too long ago about a very special event that was coming up -- the Dawn Levin Volunteer Appreciation Day and the Walk for Dawn. The event took place on June 2, and the entire school and so many parents came out to support the efforts of Dawn z''l and her family to raise funds to improve the conditions at The Katlego Creche, a nursery school and preschool in the village Rooiboklaagte in northeastern South Africa. Dawn was a huge part of HAMC in every way, and her legacy will live on through this project. The walk on June 2 alone raised more than $3,000!

Here's a short video of the event. To read more about Dawn and The Katlego Creche, check out this post.

Join Us As We Walk for Dawn!

Students at The Katlego Creche nursery school.

Please join us in celebrating our many HAMC volunteers at this year’s Parent Association volunteer appreciation day from 9 a.m. until noon on June 2, 2011.

As you may or may not know, HAMC lost a most extraordinary member of our family and a true friend, this year, when Dawn Levin z”l passed away. Thus, we've renamed the special day to the Dawn Levin Volunteer Appreciation Day. Dawn was likely one of the most tireless, inspiring and engaged volunteers at HAMC, often doing so out of the sight and without the knowledge of so many people in the community. She worked behind the scenes to make various fund raising events go off effortlessly as well enhancing a lot of programs. She was a gem. She is missed and will continue to be missed. In honoring her memory, we ask for your assistance, in honoring a commitment that was very important to Dawn, and to her family.

Dawn and her family have been working to raise funds to improve the conditions of the facilities of The Katlego Creche, a nursery school and a pre-school located in a village called Rooiboklaagte in north eastern South Africa. Once improved, the school can apply to be registered with the local municipality, and, once registered, the school will receive food assistance so that the school can serve a hot nutritious lunch to the kids. As part of this year’s Dawn Levin Volunteer Appreciation Day, the students at HAMC will participate in a Walk for Dawn. One-hundred percent of each pledge made will be placed directly into a fund for The Katlego Creche school. If our school can do a mitzvah for this school, and for Dawn and her family, then we are certainly participating in Tikkun Olam, or Repairing the World.

Please take the time to speak with your children about this special Walk for Dawn, so that each child will know the reason behind the walkathon. This will be a special morning for the whole school to walk as one to honor the life of a wonderful woman and to make a difference in the lives of children who touched her life and whose lives we can touch. Parents and friends are invited to celebrate Dawn and walk with the students!

Rather than pledge for each lap walked (and, especially if the weather is inclement and we have to move indoors and do this event a bit differently), we are asking for a pledge for participation. Please ask your family and your friends to participate, and please pledge generously so that each child will not only participate in the walk, but will feel like he or she has made a difference in another child’s life. The form can be downloaded at http://jewi.sh/dawnlevinwalk.

Please send in your donations/pledge forms as soon as possible. The Parent Association will match up to $500 of all money raised! Please mark your calendars for this important morning. And be sure to RSVP on Facebook!

Changing Day School Culture

There's no such thing as old news for us, and we want to share a wonderful article from an October issue of New Jersey Jewish News that highlights the amazing work that the community has undertaken to raise endowment funds for the three MetroWest Jewish day schools. The article really expresses what our Head of School Moshe Vaknin calls avodat kodesh -- holy work. The cooperative efforts of the three MetroWest schools is something for which we all should be proud!

Heads of all three participating schools are also raving about their experiences with the project. They say having a communal pot of money to use to bring experts in to all three schools enables them to solve common problems at a lower cost. They also like having colleagues to turn to in what is often a lonely job. 

The leaders of the three schools meet every six weeks and said any initial anxiety they may have had about working together dissipated early. 

“We have put away our differences — we don’t discuss prayer or philosophy,” said Moshe Vaknin, head of school at the Nathan Bohrer-Abraham Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County, a nondenominational community day school in Randolph. “We can see what our synergies are, what commonalities can enhance all of us. There are so many things we don’t compete over, and this is an opportunity to find ways to collaborate.”

HAMC Alumni Give Back!

Have you seen the HAMC Alumni Scholarship Fund video? If you haven't, be sure to watch it and let us know what you think!