Volunteering
Building character is an important part of the education at Boys Town Jerusalem. The curriculum stresses in-depth studies about good deeds and community service (chesed) from Jewish sources along with hands-on experience. Every BTJ student, including those who have made aliyah participates in weekly volunteer activities that engage them in giving of themselves and helping others.
Current volunteer projects at BTJ include tutoring elementary school students, helping needy families, organising large charity and clothing drives before Jewish holidays, collecting and packing food for distribution to the needy, and teaching the elderly to use computers. Boys Town students have been extremely active in aiding the resettlement of former Gush Katif residents, helping farmers relocate their greenhouses and equipment and coordinating the donation and distribution of clothing and basic necessities to Gush Katif families in their temporary residences.
Projects aimed at beautifying the Land of Israel are especially popular among BTJ students. Recently, several groups of boys cleared a vacant and neglected lot in an impoverished Jerusalem neighbourhood, planting grass and creating a beautiful new play area for local residents. On the basis of that success, BTJ and the Jerusalem municipality are teaming up for an even more ambitious project: cleaning up a refuse-strewn valley and transforming it into a large public park.
You will also often see students from the campus helping out in soup kitchens in downtown Jerusalem, dispensing food to the poor, needy and elderly.
All these projects are aimed at helping others attain a better standard of living; It enables the students to become more responsible, and rarely do we hear about Boys Town pupils behaving improperly. We believe that is due to the various volunteering projects organised by the school.