Temple Nursery School Mitzvah Project Helps Local Kids and the Earth

This Holiday Season we were so excited to welcome Temple Emanu-El of Manhattan to our network of toy collectors and volunteers. Read on for a reflection from the parent who led the toy collection initiative and to learn more about the meaningful inspiration for the Mitzvah project. 

This year at Temple Emanu-el Nursery School (TENS) in Manhattan, each class was asked to propose and execute a Mitzvah Project leading up to the holiday season.  A mitzvah, in its literal translation, means a commandment, however the term mitzvah has also come to express an act of human kindness or a good deed.  TENS Class 324, which consists of 18 children ages 4 & 5 yrs old, decided their Mitzvah Project would be to collect and donate their own personal gently used toys, and connected with Second Chance Toys whose initiative aligns perfectly with purpose of the class's project.  The mission for each child was to select toys of their own (plastic and in good condition) that they were open to donating, with the express purpose of giving those toys away to other children who don't have many (or even any) toys of their own.  The class genuinely understood the message of giving something of themselves (which to a 4-5 year old child can be a toy/toys they may have once treasured!) to children who don't have the opportunities that they have, and it became a meaningful, impactful and heartwarming project for these young kids.  Over the course of a couple of weeks, they each brought in the toys they selected from home to donate, showed each one to the class, some expressed why they chose to donate them, and excitedly marked off their personal number of donations on the class's collection chart, resulting in a total collection of 56 toys altogether.  The entire donation collection was then dropped off at one of SCT’s local NYC recipient organizations, whose mission is to provide programs and services for local residents with limited resources.  This young group of kids in Temple Emanu-el Nursery School Class 324 were so happy and proud of their efforts, and the understanding that they were giving other young children in their own city the opportunity to enjoy the toys that they themselves may have previously cherished.