Ordered before Chanukah for the Crown Heights Lag B’omer Parade, thousands of children’s books finally arrived in Crown Heights right before Shavuos, and were distributed in community schools.
By Anash.org reporter
What do Chanukah, Lag B’omer and Shavuos have in common?
For a few dedicated individuals in Crown Heights, all three of those dates were part of a journey to gift each Crown Heights child with a new chassidishe comic book.
Just a few weeks ago, the streets of Crown Heights were filled with thousands of children marching with true Jewish pride in honor of Lag B’omer, yom hilula of Rashbi.
The parade, which brough a smile to the children, their parents and countless residents and guests as well, was the culmination of months of efforts, with the planning stages beginning a full year before, after Lag B’omer 5781!
But is seemed that one planned aspect just hadn’t worked out: Thousands of new books, printed specially for the parade, were languishing at a New York port, instead of being distributed to the happy children.
With delays in the supply chain in mind, the books had been ordered months in advance, but bureaucratic red tape had still managed to hold up the shipment. It would be another two weeks before the books were finally released, just missing the deadline.
Or so it seemed.
The organizer immediately pivoted to a new plan: distribute the books to Crown Heights schools in time for Shavuos, giving each child a pre-Yom Tov treat. But even that plan required a special effort. The books were released late Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday was the last day of school before Shavuos for a number of local schools. So the organizers once again sprung into action, making sure to receive the shipment before the port closed for the evening.
Finally, on Thursday, the books were distributed to the children.
Each child in every Crown Heights school received a comic book retelling a story from Chabad history in English or Yiddish. The children were delighted with the new book for Yom Tov, and the wide smiles that had been seen on the children’s faces on Lag B’omer were seen once again.
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