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During the Philanthropists Parlor Meeting at the first B'nai Tzedek Retreat in the Fall of 2003, I acted out a role that I am quite used to playing: begging other people for money. I have sold M&M's and pancake breakfasts, have rung many, many door bells and carried many UNICEF boxes. I always have thought that will be how I give tzedakah, raising money and trying to find more. But this year, I have participated on an entirely new level. I'm not only raising money, but I'm deciding where to give it away.

I am part of the B'nai Tzedek Youth Foundation, a group of 20 B'nai Tzedek members from all over Western Massachusetts who are trying to decide how we want to give away $7000. At the beginning of the year, we raised about $2330 as a group and the Grinspoon Foundation matched it two to one. Now, as a member of the B'nai Tzedek Youth Foundation, I have a simultaneously impressive and oppressive packet of Jewish organizations who want money from us. And I have a say in who is going to get it. It's incredibly empowering to conceive that I would be responsible and organized enough to give out thousands of dollars. Ten percent of any paycheck I've ever received has never seemed like a world-changing amount, and here I am with the opportunity to see on a larger scale how the smaller donations add up. It's also amazing to see that we can provide such a big impact, and entire year of healthy snacks or programs or scholarships. It's also helped to shown me the tremendous needs that exist.

It's impossible to give every organization the amount of money they want, or even the money they need. Each one has a truly worthy and wonderful cause, each one is organized, and each one has dramatically changed someone's life. The thing I've realized on the Youth Foundation is just how much I can live in my bubble world; seeing daily enough food (for me), enough clothes (for me), and basically enough anything else I can imagine. It's humbling to realize just how untrue this is for the rest of the community and world, and it hits me most when I see how many programs lack funding. There are programs that can provide healthy snacks for kids for just three thousand dollars, and that doesn't even come close to filling the entire need. There is so much that is broken, and it is painful, yet realistic, to see the many, many programs that need money. Reviewing the proposals for these programs has shown me that these needs can't be ignored.

The Youth Foundation has also made me see money in a very different way. I remember the first time I met K'vod Wieder (the B'nai Tzedek director). He asked us to rank how important money was to us and how interested we were in learning more about it. I think I gave myself a negative five. I've grown up in Northampton, and some post-hippie mentality eschewing money had wormed its way into me. Before, I saw money as "the root of all evil"; something that led to trouble and greed. But the foundation has shown me how much good money can do, when used correctly. As much as I may want the world to exist on barter, for now, money has best ability to help an organizations help those who need it.

I have always had a tzedakah box on my desk, but I've noticed that it fills up faster since I've been involved with the Youth Foundation. Even though I see these programs that need so much, my actions makes the problem seem more manageable. I can also see the "every little bit helps" mentality much clearer- there are organizations that need fifty-thousand dollars for a program, and they have come all the way from New York to talk with us, just for our three thousand dollar grant. If the people who need the money are willing to believe small donations add up, than I am, too.

B'nai Tzedek Youth Foundation: A Deeper Level