“Helping the world, one city at a time”

CAREaVAN
One summer. Twelve days. Impact for a lifetime.

JUNE 23 - JULY 4, 2024

We’re heading to Portland and Seattle! Let’s help our friends out at TIVNU!

Roll up your sleeves for real, hands-on work, and team up with a “homeless village” building tiny houses. Dig into an urban agriculture project. Join your friends to revive native habitat in one of America’s coolest cities. Spend time with seniors, children, and at a local food bank. All the while, we’ll keep our work connected to the big-picture questions of opportunity and social change. We’ll learn from our larger community and listen to stories that we don’t always get to hear as we move toward a broader form of justice that includes us all.

Our teachers, artists, and activists will give you plenty to think about in the field trips, film screenings, and discussions. Nothing is abstract with Tivnu: Building Justice: what we do for the world always goes hand-in-hand with examining the reasons we do it. Communal responsibility as an ancient and contemporary Jewish ideal is on the table, and lessons our own community has learned facing hunger and hardship.

That will give you plenty to talk about as you hike to Multnomah Falls, tie up your skates at the vintage amusement park, or gear up for the white water on the Deschutes River. (Although maybe you should save the heavy discussion until after the fast part on the river!)

Plus, spirited celebrations of Shabbat at a retreat center in the country, a few days in Seattle, and great sightseeing in America’s weirdest, wonderful-est city.

Earn 35+ hours of community service while making memories of a lifetime! Filled with fun adventures, new sights, friendships and more, CAREaVAN has been a teen-favorite summer trip for 20+ years!

CAREaVAN is a trip for incoming freshmen to seniors for the 2024-25 school year. Starting at the JCC in Scottsdale, the teens, along with BJE staff and college-aged counselors will fly to Oregon, then hop on a charter bus to volunteer for various organizations and programs, explore sights, take day trips and adventures, and share in a delicious and restful Shabbat together. Every day is something new and a chance to make the world a little better!

VIRTUAL INFO SESSION with TIVNU

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 5:30 PST

  • Our CAREaVAN teens will get to work with a variety of nonprofits. By providing a mixture of mitzvah projects, i.e., Boys & Girls clubs, Food Banks, Soup kitchens/homeless shelters, Ronald McDonald House, Rebuilding Together, Habitat for Humanity, or environmental field work, we intend to expose teens to an overview on all the volunteer/community service opportunities that are available to them when they return home.

    A benefit at many of these nonprofits is the on-site project coordinator who briefs the teens on the value of their volunteer work and explains why they are doing it and who benefits.

  • Each year we look to go white water rafting, visit an amusement park, walk around town, shop/sightsee, and sometimes visit a special attraction unique to a particular city. Additionally, we hold planning session with the teens that allow them to make suggestions of the types of experiences they’d like to have.

  • Absolutely! We have some great CAREaVAN evening programs that are fun and competitive in nature – sometimes pitting the boys against the girls in Battle of the Sexes, Team Taboo, and/or creative dramatics. We have also attended Comedy clubs or movies, but those decisions will be based on interests.

  • Kosher Meals are provided throughout the trip. We will have home-cooked prepared food kept in refrigerated or frozen in coolers, and we will do additional shopping along the way as needed.

    There will be free time when teens are on their own and will be allowed to purchase their own food without kashrut supervision. In fact, we will have at least one meal where teens will be responsible for themselves.

    All food brought on the bus, must be approved dairy or vegetarian.

    See last summer’s itinerary for menu ideas.

  • We will be involved in Jewish study and rituals along the way. Jewish study will involve text-based discussions to examine and understand the need and purpose of the mitzvot we will be performing. Some of the learning will be experiential in nature especially designed for high school teens.

    Shabbat is time for teens to appreciate life in an inspirational setting. We will not do any traveling on Shabbat.

    We dress and prepare for Shabbat as we set aside time from the work week. Friday night and Saturday morning services will be held using creative motifs with teen participation. Havdalah is a special time on CAREaVAN.

  • The price for the CAREaVAN 2024 is $2,900.

    Price includes all travel fees, accommodations at hotels, dorms or airbnbs for 102nights, 3 meals a day, tickets to pre-planned outings or events, and fees associated with the program. Participants will get their own CAREaVAN shirt and other special take-aways.

  • After ariving in Oregon via plane , we plan to travel with a charter bus and a professional driver. We find that the teens enjoy the bus travel. It gives them time to rest, listen to music and interact with new friends.

    We often travel first thing in the morning or in the afternoon, and try to limit night time driving. Since we go from city to city, some destinations are an hour away where others can be 3-4.

    Parents will be asked to donate snacks for the bus. We keep the snacks in the overhead bins so that teens can help themselves. We figure by having snacks on the bus they won’t spend as much when stopping at rest stops. Although, they do buy when there is opportunity.

  • Over the years we’ve stayed at hotels and hostels. Last year we explored college dorms which was a great way for teens to see various campuses as well. This year we’ll have a mix of everything, including a hostel.

    Counselors do bed checks at night and are placed between boys and girls rooms. BJE staff often bookend the room groupings.

    During Shabbat we may stay at a large Airbnb accommodation which allows for easier food prep and relaxation.

  • Wake up around 8am and dress for the day. If it’s a travel day, we bring luggage down to load the bus. We often stay one or two nights in a location. We eat breakfast in the dorms or at the hotel and head out for the days activities. Usually we head straight to a volunteer experience. Lunch and dinner meals are typically held at parks and/or meeting rooms at our residences. Volunteer projects generally last for 2-3 hours.

    The afternoon might involve a special entertainment (rafting or amusement park) in the community or heading off to our next city. At times we will have an additional volunteer activity in the afternoon.

    Some evenings have special programs or outings planned, and there is often an end-of-day recap and reflection along with sharing important details for the next day.

    Each day there is a group of teens responsible for various tasks to help make sure things run smoothly.

  • Teens will be together throughout the trip. We will have designated ‘work groups’ where teens are divided up into small group of 6-8 to help with loading and unloading luggage and taking coolers off the bus to set up for meals at the parks.

  • Everyone is different, some like to buy souvenirs in cities we visit, others like to purchase pizzas for late night in their rooms. We recommend $150.