November
15, 2008
Temple Beth El
steps up to help newborns
Gifts for child to be donated to charity
BY ALEJANDRA DIAZ
adiaz@news-press.com
Jodi Barras is
pregnant with her second child and is due at the end of November.
The wife of Temple
Beth El Rabbi Jeremy Barras, she was recently the guest of honor at a
temple baby shower hosted by the Social Action Committee and temple
members.
Gifts from the baby
shower, Barras had decided, should be donated to Beth El for Babies, a
program that collects new items for children from birth to 24 months.
"I've been blessed
and wanted other people to be blessed," said Barras, whose baby's
gender is not being revealed for religious reasons.
"It's an honor and
when people have an excess of resources it's important to give back to
the community," said Barras.
She said a lot of
items from her first child will be used for the new baby. "It was a
great thing to be able to do."
As part of the Beth
El for Babies program, the Social Action Committee put out two cribs
with the intention to receive donated items that would later be put in
gift baskets and donated.
Items included
clothing, diapers, stuffed animals, toys and blankets.
Among the charities
to benefit this year is the south Fort Myers-based Brightest Horizons
Child Development Center in Harlem Heights. It's served the community
for 50 years and currently has 163 children.
"Brightest Horizons
serves low-income families ... if the community doesn't help these
people there is no one else to do it," said Tina Parsons, who works
with local churches and synagogues to keep the center afloat.
"We are always in
need of donations and many of the people at the center ... their
children only get hand-me-downs."
Having the ability
to provide Brightest Horizon members with new items means the center
will have more in circulation for people to use.
"We give out clothes
and they will come back to us time and time again," Parsons said. "We
then give them out again. It's a process and that's why we always need
donations."
The Social Action
Committee has been collecting donation items for the Beth El for Babies
program for four years and this year they collected more than ever.
"Today is a time of
hope for new babies, us coming together and for welcoming the new
baby," said Shiela Sklar, who helped organize the baby shower with a
group of women at the temple. "We collected many diapers, blankets and
toys."
Barbara Gribin is
the chairman of the committee that serves as a philantrophic group and
hosts various events to raise money and awareness of Judaism locally
and globally.
"We don't want the
children to receive hand-me-downs and everyone works hard to bring in
items and get them to the charities that need them," Gribin said.
Additional
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