WRJ Central District

Originally entered as a comment on October 1st, 2009

The Valley Temple Sisterhood in Cincinnati, Ohio has been doing a program called Chai Life for five years. This program, originally called Jewels, began as a way for Women of Reform Judaism members to include their daughters ages 18 and younger in Jewish programming. But we found out almost immediately that many of our sons also wanted to participate. So we renamed our group Chai Life and it includes all of our children and grandchildren. Our programming has included making fleece blankets for Project Linus, decorating planting pots for parsley for the Passover plate, designing art with Jewish calligraphy, making Hanukkah cards for those elderly congregants and community members and other programming. But we found that our most successful program of the year happens just before Purim. One of our members organizes the adult crew of bakers who make 1000 hamantashcen cookies for our Purim dinner and carnival. The adult group works while the children are in Sunday school. Then at noon, we have a pizza lunch together and the kids make hamantashcen cookies in the afternoon. They roll the dough, place the fillings, and create new flavor combinations every year. This year we had over 50 people at the lunch and cookie making program. We have found that the Chai Life program is another way to bring women into our sisterhood membership who have not been members of our group in the past. It is also a great way to engage our children in Jewish activities that they enjoy and look forward to from year to year. We charge $9 dollars per child with a max of $18 per family. On the day of the event (which is right after Sunday school so we provide lunch), we collect $5 dollars for pizza per child with a max of 10 per family. People usually donate their talents so that helps on cost as well.

Kathy Schlaeger

Co-President of Valley Temple Sisterhood
Cincinnati, Ohio
90 Sisterhood members