“Mitzvah” is Hebrew for “good deed,” and Courtney Ober, a resident of Wanaque, NJ, recently did a mitzvah for Matheny. Ober needed to fulfill a charitable giving requirement for her Bat Mitzvah at the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, NJ. The eighth grader at the Morristown-Beard School in Morristown, NJ, had been volunteering at Matheny since sixth grade, and so it was only natural that she thought of Matheny as a beneficiary.
Courtney Ober, left, and her sister Jordan with the Mitzvah clothing collection.
“When I sent out my invitations,” she said, “I included a request for everyone to bring a new article of clothing to the temple service with them. The day of my service I was amazed at how many clothes people donated! There was a huge box stuffed with goodies.”
The Monday after her November Bat Mitzvah, Courtney and her sister Jordan, a 10th grader at Morristown-Beard, went to Matheny to volunteer as usual, and their mother met them there with the box of clothes. “It really felt good,” she said, “to give these nice clothes to people that mean so much to me.”
The Ober sisters are part of a group of Morristown-Beard students who visit Matheny every Monday to help out with recreation therapy activities and interact socially with students and patients. For more information about volunteering, call (908) 234-0011, ext. 282, or email volunteers@matheny.org.
