Happy Birthday
Print 35’s 25th birthday celebration
On 2 November, 11 Emanuel students went to Jewish Care to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the creation of Print 35. For those of you who don’t know, Print 35 is a branch of Jewish Care that hires people in the Jewish community who are disabled or have special needs.
We were then able to take a tour and look at all the behind-the-scenes of what Print 35 does. Everyone has a desk and seems to be very hard at work. For those of you who have purchased or seen serviettes at supermarkets with Jewish symbols on them, these were all made and packaged at Print 35. Everyone has a special role. One person placed the serviettes in the plastic, one person sealed it, one person stuck the labels on – it’s all very collaborative.
The celebration itself was amazing. There were pictures everywhere of the growth of Print 35 over the years and they showed its amazing progression since Day 1. After the behind-the-scenes peek we were treated to drinks and snacks and time to socialise with the other attending schools (Mount Sinai, Moriah and Ascham) as well as the hard-working folk at Print 35. During this time of social gathering and mingling we were huddled together and given the honour of watching a cluster of very cute small children from Mt Sinai perform a very cute dance and two equally sweet songs.
Once the performances were performed and the photos were taken, there were speeches given by the various workers who helped keep Print 35 running. There was one worker, Benny, who had been working there for all of the 25 years, which is absolutely phenomenal! Benny met his wife at Print 35 eleven years ago, and now they have been married for eight years!
What is really great about Print 35, is that they allow people who aren’t necessarily as able as others to work and give them a chance to work on new skills and they are also payed for this work. This is beneficial for two reasons:
It gives these people something good, useful and productive to do and this can help them afford things like housing and food.
Print 35 is an amazing place to volunteer too, and we would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in helping the less fortunate members of our Jewish community. This was such an eye-opening experience that has really positively influenced us to get better involved in volunteering and helping those in need.
Miriam Itzkowitz, Year 9 and Tomer Belkin, Year 11/12