The theme video presentation of this year's Kinus Tzeirei Hashluchos highlights a grassroots project that two talented Young Shluchos create weekly, even while living 4200 miles away from each other.
When Covid began, two Young Shluchos Sheina Lowenthal from Copenhagen, Denmark, and Rivkah Cotlar from Morrisville, North Carolina wanted to find a way to connect with other Jewish girls around the world.
After brainstorming together, they came up with an idea to send a weekly email with stories and crafts all centered around the Parsha, and aptly named it “Parsha Projects”. All on their own, the girls developed the idea, created the emails, and began sending them out each week. The creative initiative immediately struck a chord. What started with just 25 subscribers quickly grew by word of mouth to 50, and then 100 subscribers.
Surprised with how popular the emails were and how quickly their subscriber list grew, the creative young girls took it to the next level.
"As we got more and more subscribers, we realized how many people were reading it, so we added more to the emails," remarked Sheina.
"Fancy graphics, a weekly story of the Rebbe," added Rivkah, "subscriber snapshot, discussion column, fun page, Parsa plot, Dvar Torah in Poem..." she goes on.
Their hard work is clearly paying off. Parsha Projects is now sent to over 250 young Jewish girls all across the world, closing in on their next milestone of 300 subscribers.
“Parsha Projects really motivated me during Covid-19,” shared Bluma Refson, Young Shlucha to Athens, Georgia. “The fact that they were able to use their talents and creativity in such a powerful way is something I can really learn from, especially during these past months where there hasn’t been much for me to do on my Shlichus.”
This beautiful story and presentation were shared as part of the Kinus Tzeirei Hashluchos banquet program, illustrating the empowering theme of “Chassidim Ein Mishpocho”, Chassidim are one family.
For more information visit parshaprojects.org.
Kinus Tzeirei Hashluchos is a project of the Shluchim Office.