It’s the Monday after spring break, which means parents every where are settling back in after a week of having kids at home. My to do list today was lengthy and my brain seems to be a bit mushy but I didn’t want to miss my opportunity to share a weekly Monday mitzvah idea. It’s repetitive though because it’s what’s still on my mind, I promise to have some new ideas by next Monday.
Today’s idea: do something positive, support something or someone.
Over spring break, I wrote about Mr. Mike, our beloved custodian who received notification that his job was in jeopardy next year along with 50 other custodians in the Beaverton school district. My blog post caught the attention of a local reporter who asked to interview me as part of a story about these layoffs. The story ran today in the Oregonian. I hope the story will do more than just share bad news, I hope perhaps it will help save jobs and maybe even bring the situation out into the public as we brainstorm any other choices we might have to reach a balanced budget that won’t affect job loss. I intend to attend the Beaverton School District listening session this Wednesday to show my support for my community and our custodian. In addition, I am letting other parents know how important it is for others to come to this meeting and support our local school community.
In the afternoon, I saw a flyer for another great way to support something. Dining out to support relief efforts for the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. More than 50 Portland restaurants have teamed up with Mercy Corps to raise money for this effort. Tomorrow, Tuesday, March 29th you can visit one of these locations and a portion of your sales will be donated to Mercy Corps to help the relief efforts.
So invite friends and family members and dine out tomorrow in support of our friends in Japan. For more information and to see what restaurants are participating, visit the Mercy Corps website.
Maybe we should think out of the box and have some local Beaverton/Portland restaurants team up to raise money for our school district budget? Sometimes thinking out of the box creates unusual inspiration!
1,000 Mitzvahs 
I wonder if the BEF has any insights on doing some sort of large scale community fundraiser to help the schools, or a subset of schools (elementary, middle, north, etc) directly.
Not sure. Maybe we should help plant the idea. I’ll email the ED.