A Helping Holiday

COURTESY OF JILL SHERMAN-MARX

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

Aholiday vacation taken by a West Bloomfield family in Puerto them to sell the rocks. “They got busy — boy, did they get busy,” Sherman-Marx Vallarta, Mexico, turned into a vehicle to help those in need.

Ten-year-old Hillel student Emeri Charlip, along with her two friends, Oliver and Alice Hybl, raised more than $400 for the Vallarta Food Bank by collecting, decorating and selling rocks.

It began when the kids decided to do an art project when they were on the beach one day, and Jill Sherman-Marx, Emeri’s mother, asked if they were interested in making it into a fundraiser to benefit someone. The kids were thrilled at the idea.

That morning, Sherman-Marx gathered art supplies to decorate the rocks with and a table for said. “They took it very seriously.” Sherman-Marx was familiar with the Vallarta Food Bank after having traveled to Puerto Vallarta for more than 20 years. She knows how crucial it’s been during the pandemic. “It was so incredibly touching to me how one man started this operation in Vallarta and, at the height of the pandemic, they were feeding a ridiculous amount of people, like 800 people. It was crazy,” she said. The rocks were sold on a “give-what-you-can” basis. The largest single donation, Sherman-Marx recalls, was between 500 and 1,000 pesos, about $25 to $50.

“When I put the post on Facebook, I tagged the food bank in it and there were comments from people who bought them and they posted a picture of their rock, which was awesome and very sweet,” ShermanMarx said.

At the end of the fundraising, Emeri and her family delivered the money and were fortunate to receive a tour of the food bank operation.

“The woman who runs the food bank was in tears,” Sherman-Marx said. “For Emeri, I think it was really eye-opening. As we were leaving, we saw people lining up for the afternoon meal. For her to visualize and see people lining up … it was just really heartwarming.

“My husband, Josh, and I teach her how fortunate we are. We get to go on vacation and do this stuff, and these people don’t even have food. It’s good for her to see and experience it.”

Sherman-Marx believes this will be a yearly tradition, and Emeri agrees.

“My favorite part was seeing the people smile as they took a rock and looked at the inspirational message,” Emeri said. “My favorite rock had a rainbow and it said ‘love’ on the front and ‘never change who you are’ on the back.

“It made me feel really good, realizing we’re doing something that will help other people in need that don’t have food,” Emeri added. “I would love doing it again.”

Seeing her daughter and friends jump at the chance to help others was uplifting to Sherman-Marx.

“It lets me know I’m doing something right. To see your child help somebody else is probably one of the most beautiful things a parent can do, and to do something that’s completely selfless … Josh and I both were just blown away,” she said.

Seeing her daughter help people in need means even that much more as a Jew.

“The first thing I said is this is tikkun olam, repairing the world. Helping one person at a time. That’s where it starts, and it just gets bigger from there.”

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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN FRANKEL CENTER

ANDREW LAPIN JTA.ORG

The University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies announced that it had received a new gift in excess of $1 million from local benefactors. The money will primarily be used to create a new fulltime endowed professorship on the faculty.

The gift comes from the estate of Stuart and Barbara Padnos, and will endow a Stuart B. and Barbara Padnos Professorship in Jewish Thought, turning what had previously been a visiting faculty role into a full-time position. The original visiting professorship had been established in 1988 via an initial $250,000 donation from the Padnos family in honor of Stuart’s parents, Louis and Helen Padnos.

Stuart Padnos, who died in 2012, was a Michiganbased scrap metal artist, recycling industry businessman and son of a Russian Jewish emigre. His sculptures are a common sight in Grand Rapids, as well as in his business headquarters in Holland, Michigan. The new donation, the exact amount of which was not disclosed by the university, was made by Stuart’s children, Doug, Daniel and Jeff.

The school’s Frankel Center was founded in 1972 and has proven a lucrative destination for major gifts. It was renamed in honor of major benefactors the Frankel family in 1988, following a $2 million gift from the family; the Frankels then donated an additional $20 million to the center in 2005 to establish a new institute within the center, the largest-ever gift to a Judaic studies department at an American university.

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