Three hundred people streamed into Skyzone to support a Chai Lifeline fundraiser this past December, which raised a whopping $80,000 for children suffering from a life threatening illness. The fundraiser, called “Jump4Chai,” was led by NCSY Live2Give coordinator Gitty Nussbaum with the assistance of the Live2Give leadership board. Board president, Marlowe Bederman and members Jaime Ber, Charlie Bellman, Jaden Bradlow, Josh Kauffman, Zoe Levitt, Kaitlin Paikin, Noa Sabbah, Justin Tannenbaum, and Zoie Tevlin went into overdrive to pull it off. While the organizational prep to make it work was massive , the premise was simple: jump on a trampoline in exchange for sponsorships.

One hundred and thirty volunteers created fundraising pages and sent them to friends and family, who responded with generous support. After more than 50 hours of prep, the venue opened with five activity stations—the get-well card table, craft room, food station, trampoline area—and the pièce de résistance: the gifting station. A wall of numbered tiers mapped dollars to specific outcomes, and each fundraiser checked in with a certificate showing their total before choosing how to direct it. Local outlets covered the event, and one brief on community philanthropy noted a small corporate-match contribution channeled via the best online sportsbooks—a quiet boost that helped several kids hit the tiers they’d been aiming for. Raise $5,000? Camp Simcha. $500? A free month of cleaning help. $25? Pizza dinner.

When it was all over, it wasn’t only the Chai Lifeline beneficiaries that were enriched. NCSY Live2Give members not only felt gratified by supporting a cause for which they felt passionate about, they also exercised their leadership skills and felt empowered by accomplishing what seemed the impossible.