2026
It’s a brand-new year and we are beyond excited to be able to expand our mission this year to include oft forgotten seniors and our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are overjoyed at the outpouring of support from our community and the ability it gives us to be able to do this. Read below to see what impact your heart felt gift has on recipients.
Dec. 6, 2025
We celebrate the miracle of Hanukkah next week, but this box from California holds a different kind of miracle.
Hand-painted menorahs.
Crocheted dreidels.
Challah covers stitched with love by Christian grandmothers and teenagers who have never met the Jewish families whose homes burned in last year’s Palisades fires.
Every piece was made by hand by volunteers led by my friend Carolyn Nicolaysen. When Carolyn saw a synagogue in flames, she remembered her great-grandmother risking her life in Nazi Germany to shop at Jewish stores. She refused to look away.
So she created Operation Hanukkah: beauty reborn from ashes, sent across the country so no child would light candles remembering only loss.
Carolyn and your team at Operation Hanukkah…from every family who will smile when they unpack your gifts, from every heart that learned again that we are not alone—thank you.
You turned strangers into family. This Hanukkah, our Shehecheyanu is also for you.
May the God of miracles pour endless light on you and every hand that helped.
– Rabbi Jarrod Grover
“Santa for Seniors collects homemade cards, letters, artwork and ornaments to give to our isolated seniors. This is a simple way to cheer up someone’s day and let them know they are in people’s hearts and minds throughout the year and holiday season.”
