With 2nd half of the summer in full swing and most kids in camp, I wanted to introduce you to an amazing project that our family adopted this year, in the hopes that many of you will join this initiative and bring many easy smiles to kids that would otherwise be in tears.
It’s no secret that trip days in camp come along with the need for special noshes to be sent along too. All types of crazy, fun, gooey, sticky, exciting, (mom-finds-nauseating) candies are stashed in many kids camp bags as they look forward to their trip.
But there is always that kid or two kids that forgot to bring.
Or their parents weren’t available.
Or there is something going on at home.
And the bring your purim style nosh memo wasn’t received.
These kids watch the rest of their friends lick their 40 color jawbreakers and squirt their super duper sour power sprays with gusto and sadly cry inwardly hoping someone might notice their lack of goodies and share.
This year, our family decided we wanted to do something special in memory of our dear Tanta Gitty Greenberg a”h.
At Gitty’s shloshim, we heard a story that she took one of her kids to buy nosh for a camp trip and asked the kid to pick out a nosh for someone else that left theirs home.
This story made a huge impression on us and we decided to adopt “The Gitty Nosh” as part of our trip nosh protocol.
Every time a kid has a trip, they get to pick out a special nosh for themselves as well as a Gitty Nosh to give to someone that they look for that doesn’t have a nosh on the trip.
We did it the whole first half. And it was unreal.
Each one of my kids reported back every single time how they made someone so happy that forgot to bring a nosh!
On one trip, my daughter said that there was another girl that also didn’t bring so she decided to share her own nosh with that girl as well.
For us, it was really a matter of adding maybe 1 or 2 dollars for the sake of making a sad kid happy. Totally worth it if you ask me.
I think it would be a tremendous zechus for the neshama of Gittel a”h bas Shraga Meir HaKohen if we can spread this chesed on a global level and everyone that can adopts this idea to buy a “Gitty Nosh” when they shop for trip nosh.
I guarantee your kids will love the idea and it will train them to look out to help others and look for chesed opportunities.
Wishing everyone a safe and happy summer!
D. Wahl
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Wow! So beautiful! Thanks for sharing!
Is her father Rav Feivel Shlita?
What a special person Mrs. Greenberg was, and thanks for sharing with us.
Yes
Love it. Down to earth and real chesed. Children can clearly see the chesed they’ve done. Doable for anyone even with practically no extra time or money. Thanks for the idea and we’ll have your aunt in mind.
While this is an amazing idea, people should keep in mind that some candies can pose a risk to people who are allergic to certain ingredients. Therefore I would recommend, especially for younger age campers, to have their counselor look over ingredients (as they usually have the allergy information on their campers). This way they can be alert if something chas vshalom needs addressing. And any camper that has allergies should be told to ask their counselor to check the ingredients before eating anything given to them. (Again I’m talking more towards younger age. Because older usually know themselves. But if ever in doubt they should definitely ask their counselor)
This is beautiful! What a wonderful zechus, and what great chinuch!
Beautiful! Thanks for sharing this easy doable chesed
I am a middle class, working, full tuition type of a guy.
When my kids would go on school trips, I would tell the principal that I was paying double the trip fee so that some classmate whose family could not afford the trip fee could still attend the trip.
I like your nosh idea.
What a great idea. I believe this is something she did all the time – not just once. Fits her quite well too. She was always finding ways to life others and thought deeply about how to give those ideas over to her children.
Amazing idea! Will Bli neder start doing this when my kids get older
This “chesed” is sugar-coated madness.
We’re swapping smiles for diabetes and obesity. The truth is, candy and health don’t mix.
Promote good chesed with educating against poisoning other children.
Don’t be a victim of peer pressure.
If we all stop feeding our kids garbage. It will be easy for them to resist it.
A real kanoy do tisha bav again
A kid lifting up his friend’s sad heart is very important. Sadness would be possibly more detrimental to his health than a few candies of unhealthiness on 6-7 trips.
Theres always the one guy who has to attacks anyone who does chesed.
Any “real REAL kanoim” here who can remove the above utterly nasty and unhelpful comment?
Wow this is really special, thank you for sharing!
This is a great initiative, please ignore all the obnoxious comments.