bar mitzvah boy pitches in

There has been a big increase in the readership of this blog lately. Many of you are new to it, and I’d like to welcome you! Some of you are new enough that you may not be aware of the foundation I started soon after I returned home from Uganda last fall. It’s called Change the Truth. Please feel free to go back through the Uganda archives to read more about it. Occasionally, I will post updates on the progress of our fund raising efforts.

Like this one:

JJ read an article in the KC Star about Change the Truth a couple of months before his Bar Mitzvah. He read about children his own age who had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS and who could not afford to attend school. He decided to do something to help.

After contacting me, speaking with me about the needs of the kids in Uganda and actually meeting Michael, the manager of the orphanage when he visited Kansas City in May, JJ set a goal for himself. He wanted to raise enough money through his “mitzvah” projects to be able to send five kids to secondary school for a year. He left my house one afternoon armed with the beaded jewelry the kids at the orphanage had made and set out to accomplish his goal.

Over the course of the next few weeks, JJ raised $1,425 from jewelry sales, solicitations, 10% of his cash from Bar Mitzvah gelt, and working in a warehouse. At $285.00 per year for each high school student in Uganda, he hit his target.


JJ will be given the names of the five kids he’s assisting and will be able to follow their progress through the school year. The difference he will make in their lives will be huge.

PS – A “mitzvah” is a good deed!