Organizations Join to Help Kids

One family’s generous gesture created a joint effort between Mekimi Cheer Up Squad and JEM, to team together in providing educational and inspirational DVD’s to enhance the lives of bedridden children and adults.

Mekimi Cheer Up Squad was founded in 2003 to mitigate the anxiety and boredom experienced during a hospital stay. What began as a pipe dream to fill the entertainment needs of bedridden children has in only five years evolved into a flourishing network of kindness.

Every day since 2003, Mekimi enriches the lives of hundreds of children and young adults who suffer the debilitating effects of serious and long term medical conditions. Their all-volunteer staff work tirelessly to bring big smiles to those who have so little to smile about.

One of Mekimi’s most popular projects is their DVD Lending Library and DVD Player Loan. Mekimi has an inventory of 2,100 DVD players and a collection of more than 110,000 DVDs in their media library, which are loaned out for free to those who are incapacitated with restricted mobility and/or bedridden. The DVD lending library is open daily and is meticulously managed with a state-of-the art customized software program.

The Bruk Family – in an effort to perpetuate the memory of their mother Mrs. Chanchy Bruk obm, undertook to subsidize the cost price of a substantial number of popular JEM DVDs of the Rebbe. These new additions now enrich the MEKIMI media library, based in Boro Park with twelve national and international chapters.

The DVDs bear an inscription perpetuating the memory of Mrs. Chanchy Bruk, and will serve as an everlasting tribute to her.

The idea excited Shimshon Heszkel, founder and director of Mekimi Cheer Up Squad, who worked together with the JEM staff to select the films – aiming to ensure the maximum benefit of the intended crowds. With the young children in mind, the donated DVD’s include: the popular Hand in Hand; My Pesukim and I am A Chassid, alongside JEM’s most recent kids production My Land. Bedridden children will also enjoy JEM’s world acclaimed Chanukah DVD, The Gift of Chanukah.

For the older patients, a selection of Farbrengens will enable them to experience an uplifting spirtitual journey – simultaneously distracting them from their illness. Every year on Tishrei (and around the year), they will be able to enjoy the two volumes of Tishrei with the Rebbe, covering both the days of awe and days of joy.

From the My Encounter with the Rebbe series, the library will feature complete sets of Early Years, volumes of the fascinating series Faithful and Fortified and Sensitivity, as well as JEM’s most popular product, Challenge – an inspiring selection of public talks and private meetings with the Rebbe, in which he edifies growth, responsibility and love.

In a warm letter to the family, Heszkel writes: The effect these DVDs will have on the bedridden individuals, will serve as a perpetual zchus Lilluy Nishmosoh. In the name of Mekimi Cheer Up Squad, its volunteers and the recipients of its joyful activities, we thank you for this kind and generous donation, that shall generate zchusim time and time again.

According to Heszkel, the demand for these videos is expected to outpace the supply. If you wish to subsisdize additional videos of the Rebbe to the lending library please contact: donations@jemedia.org.