On a Sunday earlier this month, I witnessed the burgeoning future of Jewish teen education in San Diego. As part of the new Motiv Initiative–the Jewish Teen Initiative in San Diego supported by the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, the Lawrence Family JCC, Jacobs Family Campus, and the Jim Joseph Foundation—hundreds of teens came to learn about, and to do, service at its first Teen Service Summit.
The Summit, which was well attended and filled with opportunities to engage in and to create meaningful Jewish service experiences, offers a brief case study of sorts for effective teen engagement.
First, a number of workshops throughout the day led by charismatic and passionate adults addressed everything from Passion to Profit: Social Entrepreneurship to Gaming for Good: Using Entertainment to Give Back to Telling Your Service Story Through Poetry and Performance. The Social Entrepreneurship workshop was led by Sarah Hernholm, Founder of Whatever It Takes (WIT), an organization that helps launch teen entrepreneur endeavors. Teens were challenged in the workshop to share what they care about, or challenges in peoples’ lives they want to address, and envision ways they could create change for good with help from WIT and fellow teens within the program. They shared their concern for environmental degradation of our oceans, for physical fitness and healthy eating, and a strong desire to tackle substance abuse.
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