Socially aware college students do! The Half Shekel Campaign is a national awareness-raising, identity-building, and fund-raising effort to connect students to the organized Jewish community and the Jewish federation system. It's about unity, inclusion, and change. It's about breaking the mold and transforming the culture of Jewish life on their campuses to embrace every Jewish student.

The direct, face-to-face approach of the Half Shekel Campaign is designed to expose every Jewish student on campus to the fact that each has something valuable to contribute to the community. Membership isn't defined by how much money you have, but rather, by your willingness to stand up and be counted. Regardless of religious or socio-economic background or political beliefs, the far-reaching efforts of the Half Shekel Campaign inspire students to leave their mark, make their voices heard, and implement change.

So, how does it work?

The Half Shekel campaign is as much an educational and PR blitz as it is a fundraising campaign. The primary goal behind the campaign is to elicit 100% participation from a college's Jewish student population with the idea that every Jew on campus has something to contribute to the community. This means uniting the entire campus Jewish community around the common humanitarian causes that the UJA Federation Campaign embraces and asking each of them to contribute accordingly. Every contributor gets a Half Shekel pin.

Two weeks every Spring, students who have been working behind the scenes for several months organizing, planning, and learning about the needs the campaign addresses, launch a massive initiative -- plastering the campus in a sea of posters, fliers, newspaper advertisements, etc. -- so that the entire campus is sensitized to this effort. It's impossible not to learn about what the federation system does! By contributing to the community pot and wearing the Half Shekel pin, students become part of something much larger than themselves, and a once-disparate student body becomes a cohesive community, united around the goal of helping others.

For more information on how to conduct a Half Shekel campaign on your campus, .