HILLEL@FSU

By Jenna Tuckerman

“Shalom, this is Hillel at FSU.  How may I help you?”  That may be the first thing you hear when you step in to my mom’s office.  Hillel is a Jewish college organization on the Florida State University campus.  This is the first time I am able to go with my mom on ‘Take Your Child To Work’ day.

Beware of the tininess

I started my day at the computer.  Mom asked me to format some discs.  That’s basically when you wipe all the data off a disc so it can be reused.  It’s like recycling only in disc form.  Speaking of recycling, I had started a recycling project a long time ago at Hillel.  I put recycling bins and signs by every computer so that Hillel could be more eco-friendly.  When I am at Hillel, I empty the recycling bins in the outside recycling dumpsters.  Today I also took staples out of the recycled printer paper and put the paper that had been printed only on one side in trays marked ‘recycled paper’ so it can be printed on the other side.  I’m known as the ‘Gilchrist Green Girl’.

Next on my list was to organize the inventory closet by straightening the shelves and color coding the paper supplies.  I enjoy playing in the supply closet under the stairs and I even have a sign posted on the door that reads ‘Jenna’s Tiny Office’.   After that, I scanned through the haggadahs to make sure that there were no stains on the pages or pen marks.  So you ask…what is a haggadah?  Since Hillel is a Jewish organization, they celebrate a holiday called Passover.  The haggadahs are the booklets that they use at Passover to tell the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt.

You would think that I would escape chores at my mom’s work, but they keep trailing after me.  My first chore was to water the garden.  They have an organic garden at Hillel and they use the vegetables for their Shabbat dinners.  I was trying to turn the sprinkler on but it wouldn’t budge.  I finally got it after my mom helped me unscrew it.  Then after that, I helped some students take down a large poster display that had been used for a Holocaust program they had this week.

Whew!  I learned a lot from my experience at Mom’s work.  Now I know why she’s tired at the end of each day!