Planners: Nicole Pavlovsky and Sydney Bennet (El Al), Julia Cinammon and Tal Arad (Atz' Chaim) **This event won EVENT OF THE YEAR at Spring Convention 2009!**
Saturday:
6:00 PM-6:30 PM People Arrive. As they arrive, hand out the Chapter Kallah T-shirts! 6:35 PM-6:50 PM Mixer 6:55 PM-7:20 PM Cheer Writing. Split into groups of about 5 and brainstorm cheers. Share ideas from small groups and pick one to complete. Give 5 minutes for this. Finish writing cheer as a group. Give another 5 minutes for this. Then practice cheer as a group. Supplies: writing utensils, plain white printer paper, and 1 poster paper/butcher paper to write the final cheer.
7:25 PM-7:50 PMDinner. Explain each dish, and explain how all the dishes come from different places, and that it goes along with theme of “All the Colors of the Wind” because we included foods from all over the world, thus embracing diversity, or “all the colors of the wind”! We’re going to have girls split up into groups that they’ll have to sit with and mingle. See bottom for “menu”.
7:50 PM-8:15 PM Havdallah: Explain Havdallah and how it’s a time to end the week and Shabbat, and start the new week. Read the script, and afterwards go around in a circle, 1 by 1, and share what the color of their week was and why briefly.
Here’s the script:
BBG 1: Today we’re going to end the week together with all the colors of the wind. Each color represents a different emotion BBG 2: Red represents the color of sensitivity, passion, desire, and love. BBG 1: Yellow represents the color of sunshine and happiness. BBG 2: Green represents the color of nature, ambition, greed, and jealousy. BBG 1: Blue represents the color of the sky, the sea, stability, and understanding. BBG 2: White represents the color of perfection, lightness, purity, and innocence. BBG 1: Black represents the color of mystery, fear, and grief. BBG 2: Close your eyes. Reflect about your past week. BBG 1: Think of a moment where you were really happy. Something made you smile. BBG 2: Maybe something stressed you out. Maybe you had a moment this past week, where you even cried. BBG 1: Open your eyes. Now think of which color would best represent your week and why.
8:15 PM- 8:45 PM Community Service Program: 5 mins- Explain what the Opportunity Center is and talk about homelessness in the Bay Area San Francisco has one of the highest percentages of people living on the streets of any major city in the United States. The most visible segment is the “chronically” homeless – or individuals who live on the streets for long periods of time and usually have addiction or mental health problems. So it surprises many people to learn that up to 25% of San Francisco’s homeless population consists of families with children. Sadly, this is a national trend: while the overall number of homeless people in the United States is on the decline, children and families make up the fastest growing segment of our country’s homeless population. Right now there are more homeless children in the United States than at any other time since the Great Depression.
1 in 4 Bay Area families can't afford the basics of housing, food, healthcare and childcare without some kind of public assistance. There is virtually no affordable housing in San Francisco. Applicants for Section 8 federal housing typically spend 5-8 years on the waiting list. A recent study of 30 U.S. cities found that in 1998, 26% of all requests for emergency shelter went unmet due to lack of resources. This number is especially high because many families do not request to stay in shelters. In addition, a review of homelessness in 50 cities found that in virtually every city, the city's official estimated number of homeless people greatly exceeded the number of emergency shelter and transitional housing spaces. Also, despite high homelessness rates in rural areas, there are few to no shelters in these areas. Homelessness is very hard on children. More than half of children from homeless families have never lived in a permanent home, and most experience multiple upheavals each year. Nearly 70% of homeless children suffer from chronic illness. Almost 50% have emotional problems such as anxiety and depression. Homeless children are twice as likely to repeat a grade in school, and are significantly more likely not to finish high school.
The Opportunity Center in Palo Alto provides low cost apartments that are fully furnished for individuals and families. The Opportunity Center also has a child care service for residents that includes help with homework, crafts, games, and access to a computer lab. Both residents and drop-ins have access to showers, food, laundry, and medical care.
9:30 PM- 10:30 PM Breakfast Club. You need 5 people to lead this program. The 5 girls spread out across the room, and read their scripts. After they’re done, hand out pieces of paper to all the girls and pens/pencils. They can either write something like what the 5 girls read, or they can write how they found themselves in BBG, how BBG changed them, or what BBG means to them. It will take about an hour, and all you need is pencils, pens, and paper. BBG 1: I was a Princess, the most popular girl in school. I was constantly under pressure from my so called “friends” to do different things, to be perfect. Perfect in the way I dressed, the way I cut my hair, the way I acted. I liked my life; everything except my parents hating each other and using me to get back at the other. I didn’t really know anything else. I joined BBYO during my freshman year. It was something new and exciting. I was a little skeptical at first, because I was the only Jew in my group of friends, so I was the only one who could join, but now I love it. The BBG’s don’t pressure me to be something I am not, they try to get me to be the best person I can be. I was a Princess. Now I am a B’nai B’rith Girl. BBG 2 I was a jock. People saw me for what I accomplished on the field and nothing else. They expected so much out of me; my peers, friends, teachers, and especially my parents, but they did not know me. Sometimes I wished my knee would give way so that I did not have to compete anymore. Because of my sports, I did not have much time for extra clubs or activities, luckily my parents said I could try BBYO, so I went to a program. They did not just see me as a jock, as someone who could win games, they saw me as a person, as a friend. I was a jock. Now, I am a B’nai B’rith Girl. BBG 3: I was a rebel; acting on my own accord. Doing things when I felt like it, if I felt like it at all. Never caring f things did not work out, or did not go perfectly. I was trouble; coming from a bad family there really was no other way to act. I did poorly in school because I didn’t care about it, not because I wasn’t smart. But then I found a group of girls who accepted me no matter what. They saw past my rough exterior and truly tried to get to know the real me. I was a rebel. Now I am a B’nai B’rith Girl. BBG 4: I was a brain. You know; that person who was in the math and physics club, that person who was the butt of many jokes and who everyone liked to trip in the hall? I am always expected to have amazing grades, to get A’s no matter what and who was going to go places. It was so stressful. Freshman year, I finally found a retreat from that life. I finally found a place to relax, have fun, be free of stereotypes, and make amazing friends. I was a brain. Now, I am a B’nai B’rith Girl. BBG 5: I was a basket case. I had no friends and never had anything to do. My parents are workaholics and I have been neglected my entire life. I was mostly quiet. I would have opened up if people wanted t hear me, but no one really ever did. That is, until I started BBG. Most people seemed sincerely interested in getting to know me, and I was willing to let them. BBG is my home away from home. I was a basket case. Now, I am a B’nai B’rith Girl. BBG 1: All of us came into BBG as different things. We came from different places, different customs, and different schools. But, we each have something in common now; we are B’nai B’rith Girls. And, not only that, every single one of you chose to be a leader of CRW BBYO. BBG is a place to get away from your home drama and be free of stereotypes and problems. It does not matter who you are at school, all that matters here, is that you consider yourself to be a B’nai B’rith Girl. BBG 2: Dear Mr. Koch,
We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole weekend for a convention for whatever it is that we did wrong. But we think you’re crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we are. You see us as you want to see us; in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is… a brain,
BBG 1: A princess BBG 5: A basket case BBG 2: An athlete BBG 3: And a criminal BBG 4: Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, All: The Breakfast Club
10:35 PM- 11:05 PM Israeli Dancing. Have a few girls who know specific dances lead cultural, Israeli dances!
Sunday:
10:00 AM-10:30 AMBreakfast. Again, explain the origins of the foods and mix girls up so that they can mingle. 10:30 AM-12 AM Jewish Survivor Program Mirror Program: (Back-up program). Put a mirror into a box, and sit in a circle and pass the box around. When a girl would get the box, she had to open it, and say exactly what they saw (which was themselves). Keep on passing it around until everyone was done, and then ask what the purpose of this was. The answer would have been to show that we all have the same problems and we all see ourselves like we have flaws and we'd want to change a lot of things about ourselves physically