Cohort 5 Impact Project Descriptions

Cohort 5 Impact Projects Descriptions

Isabel Feinstein & Hannah Goldstein: Coach- Dani Weinstein

We have chosen to develop a series of programs targeted towards students who are unexposed or uneducated about the Israeli-Arab conflict. Our model is intended to introduce a pro-Israel, yet open-minded viewpoint to Massachusetts students through focusing on not only Israel's politics, culture and economy, but its role in the Middle East as well as the whole world.

David Grossman: Coach- Jesse Ulrich

“The Influence Club” will be a place to discuss ideas and open students’ horizons to a perspective much larger than the high school classroom. Through influential and inspirational speakers, we hope to add flavor and depth to the academic high school experience, starting in my own high school in New Hampshire.

Daniel Smits, Zoe Federman, Naomi Silverstein: Coach- Chad Brodsky
“The Pending Food Project” will attempt to reduce hunger within the greater Boston area by installing a system through which people can pay for the meals of others. By enabling everyone to participate in the full cafe experience, dignity is preserved while providing a platform that will feed anyone in need.

Oliver Shoulson and Joshua Perlmutter: Coach- Jesse Ulrich
We believe that the inspiration and motivation of teachers and students of the community in pursuing and incorporating the arts in their work, learning, and lives is extremely important. We are carrying out a day of learning to exhibit and promote art among the youth as well as educate teachers about adding art and creativity into more traditional subjects. We are doing this because many students do not have an outlet for their creativity and also many classrooms can become much more pleasant learning environments by incorporating arts education.

Shayna Levitan & Emma Starr: Coach- Ilise Krieger
Through the use of “laughter yoga,” we aim to provide playful and fulfilling laughter yoga sessions for senior citizens, creating an invigorating laughter and meditation process that releases the inner child of every participant regardless of age.

Josh Geller, Rachel Goodman, Micaela Furman, Izzy Gleckman, Galia Bernat: Coach- Anne Hertzberg
We will create a better experience for the siblings of patients in hospitals.  We will help them to feel important even though they may not be the center of the parents’ attention due to the circumstances by donating items and hopefully hosting at event at a local hospital. Through donating items, like toys, to these siblings, we will help them to stay positive and occupied throughout their brother or sister’s hospitalization.

Sarah Gladstone: Coach- Dani Weinstein
The Starfish Project seeks to establish clubs in area high schools, modeled after the Starfish Club at Brookline High School.  These clubs raise money and awareness among teens of the problem of obstetric fistula in an effort to help these young girls get their lives back. Obstetric fistulas develop as a consequence of girls in Africa being forced to marry and get pregnant before their bodies are big enough to be able to deliver a baby safely.   Without proper medical care in these rural villages, these girls are often in labor for days, resulting in internal tissue damage that leaves these girls unable to control their wastes.  These girls are then ostracized by their family and the entire community because they cannot keep themselves clean.   

Hillel Maroun & Adin Feder: Coach- Liana Mitman

We will create programs that aim to educate people in our Jewish community about the plight of African asylum-seekers who have come to Israel. These people’s situation is not very well known in the Jewish community in America even though it is a very pressing political and social issue for Israel. Through compiling different asylum seekers’ experiences and stories and discussing them with our communities, we hope to raise awareness of and funds to assist organizations that provide assistance to the asylum seekers in Israel.