Cheryl Graff and Andrew Van Herik are 9th grade teachers at an arts high school in Chicago, Illinois. Ms. Graff is a Diverse Learner Teacher and Mr. Van Herik is an English Language Arts Teacher who co-teach one section of Freshman English I. When the current pandemic forced schools to close their doors and switch to remote learning they noticed a major shift in student attitudes about learning. Ms.Graff noticed attendance rates were low and students shared they missed attending art classes in person. Ms. Graff and Mr. Van Herik quickly responded to their students' needs. Thinking outside the box, they developed a plan to increase student engagement in a remote learning setting.

Ms. Graff connected with professional artists on Twitter to share advice and provide writing prompts for students. So far she has received nine videos and many tweets from artists such as Grammy Award-Winning Singer Lisa Loeb, Screenwriter, Krista Vernoff (head screenwriter for ABC’s hit medical drama Grey’s Anatomy), Actress/Producer/Screenwriter, Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 1 & 2), Singer/Songwriter, Lori Lieberman, BMX Pro Rider Matt Wilhelm, Broadway Director, Jerry Mitchell, Lyric Soprano, Amanda Majeski, and TikToker/YouTube personality, Zach King. Ms. Graff and Mr. Van Herik are integrating these videos and tweets from professional artists with students as part of their curriculum so students continue to practice their reading, writing, and speaking skills in an online setting. Ms. Graff and Mr. Van Herik have shared some highlights below:

-Submitted by Cheryl Graff

In the middle of March, a group of JUF colleague-friends planned a Shabbat dinner with funding from the Jewish organization One Table. One Table provides resources for young people to celebrate Shabbat. As part of this initiative, they sent our group a nourishment gift card so we could purchase items from Whole Foods to make our Shabbat meal. Unfortunately, we cancelled our Shabbat dinner due to the pandemic, but we still received the nourishment gift card. We assumed we would all gather for Shabbat together eventually. Fast forward to July: thanks to JUF TOV's Nourish Our Neighborhoods meal drive, we knew we wanted to pay it forward and spend our gift card on meals for people in need. Shabbat is all about finding meaning in mitzvahs and doing good for others is a mitzvah we all deeply value!

-Submitted by Molly Kazan

I live in the Lincoln Park neighborhood near St. Josaphat church and while working from home one day, noticed a group of people lining up outside the church. I learned that the church has a daily food drive through which they provide bagged lunches and other essentials to those in need. I decided to stop by and drop off a few pantry items they could distribute. Something as simple and effortless as a food donation showed me that it's not necessarily about the time or money one contributes, but rather, the thought behind an act that can better one's community still carries significance.

-Submitted by Jamie Fuhrman

It was so disappointing when Good Deeds Day was cancelled at the end of March. Right before the pandemic hit, myself along with several other members of Congregation Etz Chaim in Lombard were set to deliver Maot Chitim Passover meals to the Krasnow Residence in Skokie (which we have done twice a year for many years), then (following brunch) participate in the GDD Open House at Anshe Emet in Chicago, and finally cooking for, serving dinner to and eating with our DuPage PADS guests who shelter overnight at Etz Chaim every Sunday evenings. We had dubbed the effort involving a 68-mile minibus ride the “March Madness Mitzvah Marathon.”

Instead we turned our attention to helping stock our local food pantries (including the one down the street at Christ the King Church) and providing supplies to DuPage PADS (whose clients benefited from a major fundraiser that organization ran during the early weeks of the pandemic, paying for food and overnight stays in local hotels in lieu of unsafe stays at local houses of worship). Some of us ran Facebook fundraisers for various charitable organizations providing emergency relief to those in need. Many of us have made regular calls to family and friends we know were isolated during this trying time.

Despite the heartache caused by the coronavirus, there have been several silver linings, including (through the miracle of virtual conferencing apps) gatherings of groups that might otherwise never have connected. My favorite example was the “Fitzer Family Zoom Reunion”, in which on a Sunday in early May, more than 30 members of my father’s mother’s family spent the better part of two hours catching up and, in many cases, seeing and speaking to each other for the first time.

The participants represented three branches of David and Rosa Katz Fitzer, my great-great-great grandparents who were born in the 1830s in Stanislau (then part of Galicia, Austria but subsequently part of Poland and Ukraine) and included the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and even a couple of great-great grandchildren of all five siblings of the generation represented by my Grandma Bella (may her memory be for a blessing). Family members joined from California where it was early morning, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Illinois where it was late morning and Israel (including the Tel Aviv/Yafo and Kibbutz Shamir in the Upper Galilee) where it was early evening.

We were brought together by the two primary genealogists of the family, one my close cousin who is a retired tech exec in California and the other a more distant cousin who is a history professor at William & Mary College in Virginia.

We each told our story and shared how we were faring while socially distancing. We enjoyed connecting with close family and making acquaintance with more distant family (and have now connected through Facebook), but in the end realized we really need an in-person reunion, tentatively planned for the fall of 2021 at Kibbutz Shamir!

-Submitted by Joel Spenadel