Mitzvah Day

Each year we support Mitzvah Day – a day of social action where people come together to give time, not money, to show kindness, give back and to make a difference to the local community.

Alumna Laura Marks OBE, founder and chair of the charity, delivered a video message to students and staff this week, thanking everyone for their hard work and telling them more about this November’s special Month of Mitzvahs, which focuses on helping to overcome food poverty and loneliness.

To support this initiative, our families donated tinned and dried food items to our local foodbank at the JW3; in the pandemic, it has become one of the biggest suppliers of food to those in need in North and Central London. Students and staff also created hundreds of uplifting greeting cards to be distributed with the food parcels.

Headmistress Vicky Bingham, quoted in the Ham & High, praised the pupils’ efforts: “Mitzvah Day is a fantastic opportunity for the whole school to engage with the local community – one of the many initiatives that help to foster a culture of kindness at South Hampstead. It is wonderful to see such enthusiasm from the students supporting JW3’s foodbank and helping to tackle food poverty.”

Last year, our charity team picked up the Outstanding Youth Mitzvah Day Award for galvanising the community to contribute to foodbanks and to help combat period poverty.