Ian Hipschman, who will become bar mitzva Aug. 1 at Temple Beth Miriam in Elberon, distributes food to the needy and homeless through Jewish Family & Children’s Service.
Photo courtesy Andrea Phox
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July 21, 2009
Ian Hipschman could be filling all his summer days with fun and games. Instead, he is giving up his Fridays to volunteer at Jewish Family & Children’s Service of Greater Monmouth County.
At the agency’s Asbury Park office, Ian distributes food to the homeless and needy as his project for his Aug. 1 bar mitzva at Temple Beth Miriam in Elberon.
The Long Branch Middle School eighth-grader said he chose the project because “I know in my heart there are people who can’t afford to eat, and I think they should have the opportunity to eat.” At JFCS, he said, “I can help feed people, so it’s just perfect.”
Ian’s mother, Jillellen Herzog-Hipschman, a JFCS counselor, said she, her husband, Paul Hipschman, and Ian considered a variety of projects.
“We wanted to give back to the community and what better way than at the food bank,” she said.
Ian and his family will also donate food to the pantry and are asking his bar mitzva guests to bring a donation.
Susan Diamond, JFCS director of volunteer services, said the agency offers both kosher and nonkosher food at its pantry. “We need more food,” she said, “because there are more and more people who need it.” Herzog-Hipschman added, “We went from having just a little program to really feeding the hungry.”
Ian, a member of the National Junior Honor Society, plays the guitar and performs magic. He was born with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and has been involved with the National Arthritis Foundation, serving in 2006 as youth chair for the Monmouth-Ocean County Arthritis Walk, which he has been part of for eight years. Team Ian has raised as much as $10,000 in a single year.
In 2007, he was one of a select group representing New Jersey sent by the foundation to Washington to lobby legislators about passage of a bill to fund arthritis research.
“My arthritis doesn’t limit me anymore because of the medicine I’m taking,” he said. “Even before, I acted as if it didn’t bother me. I’ve also started physical therapy, which has helped me a ton.”
Through his project, he said, “I learned there are people who are not as fortunate as I am, and if I give a box to one family, I know I may have saved that family’s life. That really does it for me, and I only wish I could do it for everyone in the world.”
Diamond encouraged students who wish to arrange a mitzva project with JFCS to call 732-774-6886.
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