On January 11, 2021 the second cohort of the Remember Project met virtually for the sixth time. This year's Remember Project cohort is comprised of 20 teens from diverse backgrounds representing eight local public and private schools in the greater Charleston area. During the meeting, the students heard from The Anne Frank Project and then worked together to update the Holocaust education proclamation that was started by the first cohort. Read below as Carson Frolich, senior at Palmetto Scholars Academy, reflects on this experience.

This meeting was so incredibly full of activities and important conversations, and I honestly feel like this is one of the most incredible meetings I have attended so far. I am exceptionally grateful to be able to write this blogpost! The meeting started off with talking about the Daffodil Project ceremony my school held recently, and we talked about how other schools are going to hold their own ceremonies. We then transitioned into talking with someone about the Anne Frank Project, which was incredibly inspiring to hear about. All of us are given the opportunity to bring resources from the Anne Frank Project to our school, and they were incredibly flexible with the teaching style of our various schools given the pandemic restrictions. They have both in person and online options. Overall, I truly enjoyed hearing about the message of the project, which is getting more young people involved with educating others about devastating yet important topics like the Holocaust.

After briefly speaking with Anita Zucker, who is always inspiring to hear from, came my favorite part of the meeting. It was when we all worked together on the Holocaust Education Proclamation! We were all separated into three groups focusing on editing the preexisting proclamation document for either grammar or content. My group, the grammar group, ended up changing and editing a fair bit of the document, and we even added a little bit of content, too. It felt good to work on this--communicating with other people about things that we all find important. I enjoyed the sense of community and purpose that I found when working on the proclamation. This is the kind of work that I joined the Remember Project for. I want to share with people exactly why it is so vital to educate and never forget genocides such as the Holocaust. I feel particularly compelled to work on more things like this because of recent events taking place in America in regards to democracy, human rights, and racially motivated violence. Overall, this meeting made me even more inspired to work on more things like this in the future, and I especially want to continue doing things like this outside of the Remember Project when I head to college.

 

*Carson Frolich was selected to participate in the second cohort of the Remember Project. High school students have a rare and unique opportunity to study the Holocaust and other genocides by becoming an ambassador in their school and community through the Remember Project. For high school students looking for a meaningful and profound community service experience, this cohort is an excellent option with monthly meetings to ensure this next generation is committed to ‘Always remembering’. For more information on the Remember Program visit https://www.jewishcharleston.org/remember