Thanksgiving is a time for families and friends to gather and celebrate the bounty of the season, but for many in Connecticut, the holiday is a stark reminder of their strug-gle with hunger. Especially this year, when families are struggling with the financial hardship brought about by unemployment, more people then ever before are in need of a helping hand.

“For years our teens have been coming together on the Sunday before Thanksgiving for a mega-pie baking event,”  says JTConnect Program Director Cara Levine. “Tables and tables of teens come together to mix ingredients and bake pies. It’s really special to see so many teens committed to giving back.” 

This year, because of the pandemic, it wasn’t possible to bring the teens together in one place. Still, they were determined not to shelve the project. And so, on Sunday, Nov. 22, more than 80 local teens logged onto Zoom and spent the afternoon baking pies with their friends. When they were done, more than 170 pies were baked and do-nated to nine different charities. 

“My favorite part of the event is making the pies, even though we sometimes make a mess! It is so meaningful to bake something that you know will directly make someone happy,” Sophie Kudler, a junior at Hall High says.

To give the teens a sense of just how meaningful their efforts were, a representative from Hands on Hartford’s Faces of Homelessness program spoke to the teens on Zoom as they baked, sharing with them his personal account of homelessness and hunger. He encouraged the teens to remember that the homeless “didn’t start that way. They have families. No matter the situation, they’re still human beings. We have to val-idate their humanity. I’m a person. It happened to me.”

In addition to the pie baking event, a group of JTConnect and Young Israel teens spent several hours on Sunday morning volunteering at Jewish Family Services (JFS) annu-al Thanksgiving meals and clothing distribution. The teens helped JFS distribute more than 200 holidays meals for families in need, as well as hundreds of bags filled with winter clothing. In addition, the previous week, JTConnect teens sorted mounds of food collected by the Mandell JCC for distribution by JFS.

“It takes a village,” says JTConnect Executive Director Eric Maurer. “It is incredible to see organizations coming together in the spirit of giving. COVID has been especially hard on teenagers as they manage hybrid schedules at school, cancellation of events and sports seasons and the loss of social interaction. It is so inspiring that despite all the stresses they are going through, teens stay committed to giving back in a big way.”

The teen volunteer projects were organized through JTConnect with support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford.  JTConnect engages teens from throughout Greater Hartford in interactive educational and social experiences grounded in Jewish learning and values. To find out more, visit jtconnect.org.

Main Photo: JTConnect volunteers helped JFS distribute to those in need hundreds of bags filled with winter clothing.