Beyond raising money for their senior trip, Farber senior class representative Yaffa Klausner believes the effort is a good way to engage with the community.
The senior class at Farber Hebrew Day School is taking part in a sukkah-building fundraiser with all proceeds funding their senior trip at the end of the year.
The fundraiser advertisement went up at the end of August letting the community know that they were ready to hire, and in less than 48 hours, the seniors had a full schedule of sukkah building. The senior class was blown away by the support.
Farber senior class representatives Yaffa Klausner and Jonny Kornblum have been in charge of coordinating the sukkah building, although the entire senior class is involved in building.
“We sent out a flyer and we got many emails, but we could only accept so many with only so much time because all the holidays are early this year,” Kornblum said. “I believe we accepted 25 or 26.”
With sukkah takedowns still to come once the holiday is over, Klausner said they haven’t finished fundraising, though she believes the total will be a couple thousand dollars.
Some Farber senior classes in the past have gone to Upper Michigan for their senior trip, but Klausner said they could change it if they wanted to.
“We actually didn’t have much time to start planning the trip before we got thrown into the fundraiser,” Klausner said. “It’s like the first week of school we’re already working on fundraising, but it’s really great, and we’re happy to help people build their sukkahs.”
Beyond raising money for their senior trip, Klausner believes the effort is a good way to engage with the community.
“We had some people who emailed us saying they usually build their own sukkahs, but they got injured or they need help this year,” she said. “We even got our first- and second-grade teacher wanting us to build her sukkah, which we were very obviously happy to do for her. It’s just a great way to get involved in the community.”
Klausner says the community has been really grateful, and while coordinating and building has been a learning curve, it’s been a rewarding experience.
“Through doing this, we’re really more involved in everybody’s Sukkot experience,” Klausner said. “We’re not just building our own sukkah, and the sukkah is like the most important part, so we’re really building people’s holidays for them.”
