Yoni Jesner Award Ceremony

Hundreds attend the Yoni Jesner Award Ceremony, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Yoni Jesner (z"l)'s brother and grandmother hand out a record numbers of awards to children from six Jewish schools

The Yoni Jesner Award Ceremony - the 4th of its kind - took place on the evening of Monday 6th June, with over 365 people in attendance at a very packed St John's Wood Synagogue enjoying a reception and Award ceremony. Leonie Lewis, Director of JVN, compered the event.

This year a record 140 children attained their Yoni Jesner Award (over double the numbers from last year, with just under 90 receiving their certificates on the evening from Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and Yoni Jesner (z"l)'s grandmother Mrs Vivian Black. Ari Jesner - Yoni's brother - gave a moving speech talking about Yoni - a student youth leader tragically killed in a bus bomb in Tel Aviv in September 2002 who was committed to encouraging young people to do as many acts of loving-kindness as possible.

The Chief Rabbi also spoke movingly about Yoni and also about how people can go beyond the ordinary, committing acts of loving-kindness by using just what skills and resources they actually have to reach out and help people. He recounted personal stories from his family about how people overcame limited English, shyness and other barriers and could still help others using the skills they did have - chutzpah being one!

The Yoni Jesner Award Scheme is organised by the Jewish Volunteering Network and supported by the Yoni Jesner Foundation and UJIA to encourage young Jewish students to involve themselves in volunteering projects as part of their Jewish journey. To get the Award, the children must complete 20 hours or more of volunteering - both within and outside school in their wider community - with volunteering opportunities sourced by JVN and the schools coordinators. The record number of schools taking part this year were: Hasmonean Boys School, Hasmonean Girls School, Immanuel College, JCoSS, King Solomon and Yavneh.

The children from the schools were also part of the ceremony; with representatives of all schools talking about their time spent volunteering. The speakers talked about how they helped in schools, in local synagogues, their elderly relatives and many charities including Gift, Kisharon, Jewish Care, World Jewish Relief, Tzedek and Mitzvah Day.

Susan Winton, Chair of JVN, summed up the joyous occasion by saying: "the Yoni Jesner Award may have been the first venture for some into volunteering. You should all be incredibly proud of what you've achieved. Hopefully for many of you this is the beginning of a wonderful Jewish journey of volunteering in the community - whether this means your school, your shul, your neighbourhood, England, Israel or the wider world."

Next year, JVN together with its partner JLGB, who will be jointly running the awards for the first time in 2011/2012 to strategically work on youth volunteering in general, hope to expand the Award Scheme to more schools and more children than ever before.