By Cara Listowsky, Entertainment Manager
Clubs play a large role in many students’ time at Yeshiva University. Looking at Campus Groups on my laptop, there are more than 225 clubs to choose from. The clubs range from large ones with hundreds of members, like the Broadway club (currently at 568 members), to smaller, more niche ones like the Women’s Daf Yomi Club (currently at 18 members).
I have joined a total of 35 clubs during my time at YU, including the two I just listed. For a while, I had a wonderful time being involved in fantastic clubs like Discover NYC and The Writer’s Guild, but I had not yet found the club that would change my life forever.
Two students from the Beren campus, Maya and Rachel, had been deeply involved in chesed their whole lives, always striving to help others. They had a lot of passion and wanted to channel it into something that would bring change into the world. One day, in the middle of a conversation, they decided they wanted to start a club. They wanted to do something chesed-related and thought of fundraising for nonprofit organizations. By combining their passions for both chesed and business, the Charitable Investment Club was born.
I was invited to join the board, a position I had previously declined for two other clubs due to the significant responsibilities this entailed. However, this opportunity felt different, and I knew it was something I couldn’t pass up.
The first event we ran was a fundraiser for Chai Lifeline. The members of the Charitable Investment Club gathered together in the Schottenstein kitchen to bake cookies. The passionate energy permeated the air like static as we laughed and worked together. After the cookies were finished, we made acai bowls and wrapped up everything neatly. In the lobby of 245, we set up our table and posters with prices and got to selling. At first, business was slow, but then it began to pick up. Not only did we raise a lot of money for Chai Lifeline that day, but we also made connections with the people who stopped by our booth.
We also held a fundraiser for Beef Up Our Boys, an organization that gives beef jerky to IDF soldiers, that took place in the Nagel lobby on the Wilf campus. I was able to utilize the skills from a graphic design class I was taking to design an eye-catching poster. Being able to use the new skills I had developed for something truly meaningful was really powerful for me, as I imagined all the good I could do with them in the future.
Another event the Charitable Investment Club had was to raise money for United Hatzalah in Israel. I remember sitting in the lobby of Nagel for hours, encouraging students to enter the fundraising raffle like it was just yesterday. It wasn’t yesterday, but the impact it had on me stays with me every day. I found the courage within myself to stop random people that I didn’t know walking through the lobby and ask them to donate to our cause. It was really special to see how people were willing to give generous amounts of their own money to help their fellow members of Klal Yisrael. When I got back to my dorm late that night, I was completely wiped out from the full day I had, but it had been one of the most meaningful days of my entire life.
I look back at how the Charitable Investment Club started so small, as just a mere idea tossed out by a student on the couches in a Beren lobby, but now, it has become something much bigger. Through long nights of baking and selling, I found myself developing not only a deep bond with the members of the Charitable Investment Club, but also the desire to do chesed.
I have always loved chesed, but this was something else entirely. The Charitable Investment Club opened a channel to my heart that I didn’t know existed. I hope to take the friends and skills I have gained in this club with me for the rest of my life.