The American Jewish Society for Service links social conscience to Jewish consciousness, engaging teenagers in acts of tikkun olam – repairing the world – one house, one park, one community center at a time. The mission of AJSS is to build leaders by inspiring volunteers to put their Jewish values into action while providing service to communities in need and developing skills for independent living.

Volunteers on an AJSS summer project provide needed work to the host agency and community. Since 1951 we have served people of all races and ethnic backgrounds, in rural and urban settings, ranging from Native American reservations to migrant worker communities, to areas devastated by natural disasters.

AJSS brings together people who are interested in working and who are willing to commit to the success of the group. Our volunteers share in the responsibility for the outcome of their AJSS experience, from assisting in food preparation to organizing Shabbat services, and planning education, culture and recreation programs.

We seek out local organizations around the country that could benefit from sixteen enthusiastic but unskilled workers for six weeks. AJSS makes sure that there is real and needed hands-on construction projects, and that they can provide work site supervision. We also work with other community and health and human service agencies to give our volunteers exposure to the range of local issues and programs available to those in need.

In most cases, we live in space donated by a local church or community group. We have large sleeping rooms, one each for men and women, and our staff sleeps on-site with the participants. We will have at least one large common room for meals, meetings, and hanging out, kitchen/cooking facilities and bathrooms.

This is a program designed to put our Jewish values into action and we will frequently step back to talk about the experiences we are having. This may be in the course of a Shabbat service or after a day’s work. On occasion we find ourselves living and working near a Jewish community, and for many of the AJSS participants who come from large Jewish communities it’s also a glimpse into small town Jewish life. A trip to a civil rights museum might prompt a discussion about the involvement of the local Jewish community in the early civil rights movement. An invitation to church may give the group the chance to talk about what it’s like to be strangers in a strange land. We always want to remember that we are a group of Jewish kids who are spending our summer helping to repair the world and what that means to us as Jews and to the larger community.

An AJSS summer is not all work. Evenings may be spent inviting local community leaders to dinner for a discussion about poverty and housing in the area or by playing softball with a local church youth group. Invitations to dinner occur throughout the week. On the weekends we hit the road, taking full advantage of what the area has to offer in terms of nature, history, culture and entertainment. Recent activities have included camping, baseball games, attending a rodeo, bowling, and a foot-stomping bluegrass concert.

• Building 4 houses in the Little Rock area for Hurricane Katrina evacuees who are now making their homes in the Little Rock area, thanks to support from the Habitat for Humanity of Pulaski County, AR.

• Repairing and renovating four houses with the Appalachia Service Project of Johnson City, TN which involved foundation work, roof repair, ditch digging and painting for elderly residents in the community.

• Completing “punch lists” for 10 houses in the Grand Rapids, MI area for the Habitat for Humanity of Kent County which included building, siding and roofing, installing blinds and building porches for first time home owners.

• Cleaning and rehabilitating several homes in the Abbeville, LA community by after the devastation caused by Hurricane Rita under the auspices of the Southern Mutual Help Association.

“The Little Rock community, especially the Habitat group and the Jewish community welcomed us with open arms.We were invited to several houses to go swimming or just have a party – one time we didn’t even know the family inviting us over! It was cool to meet the people and experience Southern hospitality – and I even made a few friends in the south.”
“We really had a chance to connect to many people in the community through the work we did.”