In September 2006, Mara Seidel, the Jewish Campus Service Corps Fellow
at Hillel House, decided to sell extra loaves of Challah bread that
were left over from a Jewish Women's Collective night.
Seidel
said she read about a group in California selling Challah for Hunger
and decided to edit that idea for the University of Massachusetts
campus. Selling the Challah for $1 in the Campus Center, Hillel sold
all 24 of their extra loaves in one day.
This was the start of
Challah for a Dolla, now a regular fundraiser at the Hillel House. All
money raised goes to the American Jewish World Services (AJWS) and
specifically to their Sudan Relief and Advocacy Fund. According to
Seidel, Bill Clinton praised Hillel's Challah for a Dolla program in a
speech he gave at the AJWS "Partners in Global Justice" conference on
June 13.
For the first time this semester, the University's
MassPIRG chapter will be collaborating with Hillel on this program.
Beginning this week, the MassPIRG Darfur Campaign will be volunteering
alongside Hillel House volunteers to bake the challah and to sell it in
the Campus Center.
"We're both working to end the genocide in
Darfur," said MassPIRG Darfur Campaign co-coordinator and UMass
sophmore Yasmin Abbayad about the collaborative efforts of MassPIRG and
Hillel. "This is one way that we can work together for a good cause.
Two groups are better than one."
The first joint bake-off
occurred Oct. 21. For seven hours, volunteers working in shifts made
the dough, braided it and baked, working on other Darfur projects such
as posters for visibility, while they waited for the dough to rise and
bake. Volunteers then sold the challah in the Campus Center and in
Bartlett Monday and Tuesday of this week, raising an estimated $60 or
more. In addition to selling the challah, the volunteers hope to spread
awareness about the situation in Darfur.
"In high school, I
never knew exactly what [the situation in Darfur] was," said Yasmin.
"And then I came here and learned what it was through MassPIRG."
According
to a MassPIRG information pamphlet from last year, "Darfur has been
embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000
people have been killed; more than 2 million innocent civilians have
been forced to flee their homes … more than 3.5 million men, women and
children are completely reliant on international aid for survival."
