A year ago, sixteen boys slept in our house for Rosh Hashanah. This Tishrei, seventy people came to a campus in West Virginia, and forty came back to dance. This is what that looked like, what it took, and where it is going.
Nothing about this was planned as a program. It grew because each time we made room, more people needed it.
Rosh Hashanah 5786
16–18
boys with nowhere to go for Yom Tov slept in our house.
Our home, Toms River
The year between
Every week
a full Shabbos table, give or take the four or five weeks we were away.
Toms River
Pesach 5786
~25
boys and girls from the Lakewood area, in separate houses, for the whole Yom Tov.
Two houses, Lakewood area
Rosh Hashanah 5787
~70
people on a private campus the Gross family opened to us when our own block could not hold us.
High View, West Virginia
Simchas Torah 5787
~40
in one sukkah, with bochurim from Crown Heights who stayed up with us until almost sunrise.
High View, West Virginia
Between Pesach and Rosh Hashanah the neighbors complained about the crowd, and we were asked to leave a shul. That is part of the story too. It is why the Gross family offering us their property in High View, West Virginia felt less like an upgrade and more like being let back in. These teens get labeled "at risk" or "off the derech" before anyone asks what they are carrying. Chabad sends shluchim to the ends of the earth. We think the same effort is owed to the kids on our own block.
We packed the fridge in Toms River, drove the truck and the doodles five hours west, made up every bunk before anyone arrived, and davened Nusach Arizal in a hall that had never heard a shofar. The photos are mostly from before Yom Tov, because once it started the phones went away.
"It was not an easy feat and yet not only did they do it, they excelled and made us all have an awesome, unforgettable experience. Thank you thank you thank you!!"
About forty of us in one sukkah. Bochurim from Crown Heights who drove down to be with us and stayed up until almost sunrise. Davening that started closer to noon than anyone would admit. Every single guy got an aliyah; when the dorm building was where the guys were, we carried the Sefer Torah there and read it outside. And it was a sober Simchas Torah, on purpose — the joy had to come from somewhere real.
On Simchas Torah night a young man told Yosef that not long ago he had stood at the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge. Someone happened to call him in that moment. He is still here, and this year he danced with a Sefer Torah in West Virginia. A kid needs a reason to come back: a place to belong, someone who notices when he is gone, and someone who does not start every conversation with what is wrong with him. That is the whole job.
Watch
A fire pit, a keyboard, a guitar, string lights on the fence and a pot of cholent. No program, no speeches. The same people who dance in West Virginia need somewhere to sit on a Thursday night, and this is it.
If you gave this year, this is what you bought. If you are deciding whether to, this is what it is for.
"Whoever wants to get involved, in any way at all — extra food, a hand, a connection, a Shabbos opened in your own home — we are always down to collaborate. Always."
— Yosef Shidler
Seventy people for Yom Tov is not a one-family operation anymore. Transportation, food, lodging, and the rides home at 2 AM all cost money — and every Shabbos in between does too.
