On Purim in 2014, ten JEEP volunteer groups visited 20 locations across Cincinnati, including 15 nursing homes. They read the Megillah 19 times and reached more than 150 people.
One volunteer went into the room of a bedbound man with dementia. He told the volunteer to leave.
The volunteer had a wooden gragger, the noisemaker we spin to drown out Haman’s name. At the sound of it, the man smiled.
“That moment made my whole Purim.”
A Purim volunteer
At a Chanukah workshop in another nursing home, a man with Alzheimer’s said: “My grandfather always lit the menorah in our house…just like this.”
Partners that Purim included Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, Atara Girls’ High School and Yeshivas Lubavitch.
To join a Megillah group next Purim, tell us.
Adapted from Headlights, Spring 2014.