Translated from Hebrew by Yitz Greenwald

During one’s crazy life when one is trying to balance career, the close family, the extended family, shopping, cleaning, cooking etc., the concept that one can manage to ‘squeeze in’ something else seems like a dream.

"If only I could manage to find a spare five minutes I would find something to do; sport, diet, sort out the photographs from last Rosh Hashanah or maybe just read a book".

That is often the first thought we have when considering volunteering and/or contributing to the community. "I hardly manage to finish the month, so how can I give to others?"

I was recently introduced to Esra. A friend suggested that I go to a social event and I found myself at a meeting devoted to establishing a "New Generation". Esra has not clearly defined itself. It combines social activities for various groups in the community; English speakers, support groups, ‘Golden Friendship club, a reading circle, outings etc., but the organization also operates tens of support and volunteering projects in the community.

Any new idea is adopted with the concept of ‘lets try it’.

If you have one free hour in a week they will find a child who needs private lessons. If you just have an hour a month you can help pack food for the needy.

When your children grow out of their books and clothes – Esra has "second hand shops".

Perhaps you simply want to meet new people of your age – once a month a group meets in a pub for a drink.

This month we organized a project to collect clothes and toys for the “battered women's shelter” and the response and your wish to help and contribute made us feel very much the ‘small becoming big’. The first delivery we made was received extremely well. The second delivery was even more gratefully received – and they don't yet know about the third delivery. We thank you all for your contributions – because of you we managed to give a little joy to the children and their mothers – for them this is an unusual occurrence.

So, it is true that we all lead busy lives, but there is no doubt that sometimes five minutes are enough. I invite you to visit the website www.esra.org.il and see the amazing activities that we are doing, here in your own back yard.

Let us pray that there will always be people prepared to help others.

The article appeared in Hebrew in Talia Koren’s business magazine “מגזין קטנים גדולים”

In January 2008, www.ktanim-gdolim.co.il.