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 set up fundraising pages, which they disseminated to their friends and family, who responded with giving hearts. After devoting more than 50 hours to setting up the venue, it was ready to go with five stations to engage participants:  a get well card station, a craft room, a food station, the trampoline jumping station, and the piece de resistance—the gifting station.  The latter  featured a wall festooned with numbers that represented ranges of support and prizes that correlated with them. Upon entry, each of the 130 fundraisers was provide with a certificate, which indicated the amount of money that he/she raised. The kids-helping-kids initiative allowed the children who fundraised to have the opportunity to choose how they want to impact a child that Chai Lifeline is caring for. Raised $5000? Send a sick child to Camp Simcha. Raised $500? Ensure that a Chai Lifeline family has a free month of cleaning help.  And for just $25, you can provide a 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.