Partnering with Night Ministry to Deliver Hygiene Kits

This past Sunday, over 30 members of the community came together to assemble health and hygiene kits for the homeless population of Chicago, in partnership with the Night Ministry. The issue of homelessness feels timely: the story of the Exodus from Egypt that we will soon retell at our Passover Seders is also the beginning of a journey of unstable dwellings, moving from place to place for years on end, and the Israelites’ persistent anxiety about finding enough resources to keep themselves healthy and dignified. As we prepare to envision ourselves as if we had personally left Egypt, we must also keep in mind the divine services we were provided in the desert in order that we could maintain our humanity — and with that awareness, the obligation to pay it forward generations later.

Before organizing the kits, which contained important items like deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo, and combs, Solu members sat by families and shared their own reflections on the connection between homelessness and Yetziyat Mitzrayim. Some questions that helped frame the program were:

• If you were leaving Egypt, what are the first things you would take, either for yourself or for your family?
• How would you carry it around with you? What would be some important things you’d be missing?
• What does it feel like to think about Bnei Yisrael as homeless upon leaving Egypt?

The exercise of visualizing ourselves as having left Egypt lent deeper significance to the action of packing the hygiene kits for those in need, to think about taking care of others like we were taken care of in the desert.

We also were able to meet with the Night Ministry team a few days before the in-person project, where 15 people gathered on Zoom to learn about the root causes of homelessness and all the Night Ministry does to address it. Some of the key services the Night Ministry provides are an emergency shelter for youth 18 to 24, a self-sufficiency training program for youth for up to two years, a CTA outreach program, and, of course, the health outreach bus that visits 7 low-income communities around Chicago each week.

In the end, we were able to donate 200 kits to the Night Ministry, the equivalent of a full night of supplies for the outreach bus. Thanks to the generosity of those who helped purchase the necessary materials from the registry, those who donated supplies, and to those who came in person to put the kits together! The Health Outreach team has begun to hand them out this week in neighborhoods all around Chicago, and they have expressed their gratitude for our partnership and support in their important work.

A special thank you to Amanda Goldstein and Leah Neiman for putting the registry together, to Elliot Raff for captaining the program on the ground, and to Sigalle Shpayher and Leah Neiman for driving the kits downtown.