Registration for this summer’s Mini Camp TOV and Camp TOV programs are now open and available here! 

Camp TOV is Teens@JUF's day camp “on wheels” where teens use their time and energy to volunteer in a fun, engaging and hands-on way. Campers learn about a variety of issues facing our society with an emphasis on Jewish values and the importance of gemilut chassidim -- acts of loving kindness and tikkun olam -- repairing the world. Each day brings a new hands-on volunteering project for them to participate in with campers earning about 25 volunteer hours in just one week! Program dates are below and additional information for both programs can be found on the TOV Teens webpage.

• Mini Camp TOV is on Wednesday, June 14th and Thursday, June 15th.
  
• Camp TOV session 1 is Monday, July 31st  through Friday, August 4th.
  
• Camp TOV session 2 is Monday, August 14th through Friday, August 18th.  

Below, Hallie Shapiro Devir, Associate Vice-President of Community Outreach and Engagement, shares her experience with Camp TOV. 

As a parent, one of the best things you can see is your child doing good and enjoying it. Raising kids who are excited about making the world a better place is all the more important to me as a Jewish Communal Professional whose work is engaging teens in the Jewish community. So it was especially exciting to me to hear a conversation between my oldest and middle children the other day. Eli, a 9th grader in a Chicago Public School, had spent the morning of his “teacher furlough day” volunteering with TOV Teens, and was telling his brother, Noah, a 6th grader, about the experience. He paused and said, “I saw the Camp TOV flyers in mom’s office after we came back downtown. Guess what? You’ll be old enough to go this year!”

Eli is a several-year veteran of Camp TOV and Mini Camp TOV. Although he started because I signed him up, he now asks every year if he’s doing Camp TOV again or if only Mini Camp will fit into his summer schedule. He’s a menschy kid in general who likes volunteering, but what he likes about Camp TOV is getting to work on many different projects while meeting other teens. He enjoys being a part of something bigger, whether its being a piece of an assembly line that labels 1000 bags for The ARK’s High Holiday Food Drive, repackaging two tons of corn at the Northern Illinois Food Bank for distribution to a dozen food pantries, collecting 60 bags of trash off a Chicago beach, or painting an entire fence at a shelter for battered women. He also relishes knocking out a big chunk of his annual required service hours in a few short days. But most important to me is that the experience is one he wants to share, even with his siblings, because at the end of every day, he feels good—about himself, about the power of teens to make a difference, about the possibility of the world being better because of something he did. This summer, I’m excited to hear about my two sons having fun while doing good. I hope your kids will join them!