Why Street Birthdays

Hi, I’m Matthew Jason and if you are like me, you love birthdays and I have a special birthday coming up.  The special birthday I’m talking about is my 13th birthday, which is when I am having my bar mitzvah.  (My bar mitzvah date is in October).  A bar mitzvah is when I will be considered a Jewish adult.  Part of this experience is to do a “mitzvah project”, which is an opportunity to give back and provide some service to my community. This is helping me do my part in Tikkun Olam (“repairing the world“).

For the last four years, I have been a volunteer for a great organization called Food Not Bombs in Houston, Texas. (To learn more about it, go to:  www.houstonfoodnotbombs.org).  At Food Not Bombs, we provide vegetarian meals to hungry people in downtown Houston.  People come to meet and share food from different places and different families.  People have different problems and different stories to tell.  There are usually more than 100 people each time.

I learned that many people who come to eat with us feel left out and unimportant.  Some of them don’t have anyone around them who cares enough to celebrate their birthdays with them. Some may have never celebrated their birthdays or have not for a very long time.  So my plan is to collect money to buy birthday cakes to celebrate their birthdays at Food Not Bombs once a month. We will sing “Happy Birthday”, light candles, and eat cake to recognize the people whose birthday it is that month.  This will help them feel cared for and important.

I started a campaign with GoFundMe to raise money.  My goal was to raise $800 to pay for paper plates, forks, candles, and the cakes of course (about $65-70 each month).  By now I have more than  $2000, so I can continue to celebrate birthdays for a long time.

Please help me do my part in repairing the world.

Thank you!

Matthew Jason