The Life of Two JRA Interns

As third quarter seniors at Jack M. Barrack Hebrew, we anxiously awaited freedom from classes, homework, and waking up at the crack of dawn. Before we could attain this freedom, however, we had to complete 136 of community service at a non-profit organization. The Jewish Relief Agency immediately popped into our minds. While we had been to a few JRA distribution events and were fairly familiar with how the organization worked, we had yet to learn how much patience and hard work was required to keep the organization alive. Prior to arriving for our first day of service, we did not know what to expect. As volunteers, all we knew was that we were to help Amy Krulik, the executive director, with whatever she needed. We quickly learned that Amy was fascinated by modern social networking and desperately wanted JRA to have a presence in the online world.
The first day we set to work, updating the JRA facebook group and making JRA its very own page on facebook. This task was fairly simple for us, as avid facebookers. The challenge came when we were asked to create a JRA blog and had to venture into unknown online territory. After the initial struggle, we managed to find a simple and easy-to-use website and launched JRA’s first official blog!
In addition to our online contributions to the agency, we journeyed outside of the office to Northeast Philadelphia. Within a few days, we contacted a couple of agencies for donations, brought food to the distribution warehouse, and visited a potential location for a JRA thrift store. All of these experiences enhanced our understanding of how much hard work and dedication it takes to run the Jewish Relief Agency.