KleinLife Vice President Victoria Faykin (far right) led the Purim project of baking hamentaschen, making cards, and donating other food items for homebound seniors.
Every Purim, students from KleinLife’s Jewish Children’s Sunday School celebrate the holiday with a costume party and a hamantaschen baking extravaganza. This celebration includes assembling the hamantaschen into mishloach manot bags (“goody bags”) and hand-deliver them to the seniors living in Federation Housing’s Miriam & Robert M. Rieder Apartments and Evelyn & Daniel Tabas House, located next door at KleinLife’s Northeast Philadelphia location.
Like most celebrations this past year, the pandemic has forced KleinLife to rethink how they can still honor the holiday. “It felt sad to not do anything this year,” said Victoria Faykin, KleinLife’s Vice President, “I couldn’t let Purim pass without having our (Sunday School & KidSpace) children understand the biggest part of the holiday; giving gifts to homebound seniors.”
Faykin organized a mini-version of the hamantaschen baking extravaganza with the children in the KidSpace program and asked students from the Jewish Children’s Sunday School to bake hamantaschen at home. Some 70 children participated and also donated fruit and other food items for the mishloach manot bags. “Seeing the children bake and the in-kind donations being dropped off really warmed my heart,” said Faykin.
The mishlach manot bags were given to about 200 homebound seniors who receive meals from KleinLife’s Home Delivered Meals program. Although there is hope that next year the in-person Purim Party will continue, Faykin looks forward to incorporating this new tradition for the homebound seniors. She adds, “I hope this generosity grows every year!”