The Tracing Roots intergenerational program, a partnership between Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging and Tucson Hebrew High, will be held at Handmaker again in 2020, beginning Sunday, Jan. 12. High school student participants will be paired with Handmaker residents and get to know them through the Jan. 12 orientation session, Shabbat dinner, and three group meetings. The partners will work on a project together, creating a Facebook or other social media page or a physical scrapbook, adding to it at each meeting, and using social media and the internet to help search out friends and memories from the past. The program will culminate in a community event on Sunday, April 26, which will include a video about the program and a chance for partners to meet families.
The program has openings for 12 high school student participants. The application/contract, which is due Dec. 13, is available on the Hebrew High website at http://bit.ly/34YL2jy. Participants do not have to be enrolled at Hebrew High. The application must be signed by the student and one parent; it may be scanned and emailed to nlevy@handmaker.org. Tracing Roots 2020 participation will be confirmed by Dec. 23 by email.
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona provides funding for the program. In addition, this year, JFSA’s Hebrew High received a grant from Legacy Heritage Fund as an alumni school of the Better Together Program to help defray costs of the community event. As a result of this grant, all student participants will have an opportunity to submit an essay to the Better 2 Write program contest, and one participant will receive up to $5,000 toward Jewish camp, or up to $8,000 toward a semester or gap year in Israel, and be entered into a national contest for additional scholarship funds.
