On November 16th, more than 100 of New York’s most ambitious Jewish teens participated in PovertySLAM – UJA-Federation’s first-ever event for teens focused on poverty. An interactive, hands-on summit and grant competition, the event launched a one-month grant competition for teen participants who will develop and present innovative ideas on how to slam poverty in the New York Jewish community. Winners will be announced at the end of January, and UJA-Federation will award a combined $25,000 in prizes to help those entering transform their ideas into action during the spring of 2015. First place will receive $5,000, three runner-ups will each be presented with $3,000 and all substantial submissions will receive funding.

The summit featured presentations from David Eisner, President and CEO of Repair the World, along with Dave DeLuca, Head of Campaigns at DoSomething.org, the largest organization for youth and social change in the country. The day also included poetry slams from UJA-Federation’s Jina Davidovich, Eric Himmelfarb from City Harvest, RubyK from AVODAH, as well as Yael Marans, an 11th grader at SAR High School.