Kaps4Kallahs

by Deryn Susman, age 15, from MA

Just imagine… finally hearing that smash as your soulmate breaks the glass and suddenly, you’re caught aswirl in the lively “Mazel Tov!”s and celebration with the one you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. You are both ready to start your lives together, but things are not going as you hoped. You both need the materials to start your new life. You need the appliances, and household items to fill your new home. Sarah Ganchrow and her team from Kaps4Kallahs, have been working since December 2009 to collect MyCokeRewards points in order to purchase common household goods to donate to new (and needy) kallahs (brides). They have allied with the “Down the Aisle” Kallah gemach in New Jersey to get wedding gifts to the new couples.

It all started during the Stern College finals of 2009. Sarah was trying to study, but the Coke bottle sitting next to her was far more interesting. She noticed the MyCokeRewards logo on the side, and a memory was awoken. A few weeks back, her father had purchased a new food processor through the rewards program. How the idea transformed from a simple food processor into Kaps4Kallahs, is not entirely clear, but no matter what, Sarah and her roommate set to work. “Since we started, the amount of cap codes we have received has increased exponentially. The first week it was just me and my one roommate collecting all of the caps after a Shabbaton we had been on. Over the past few years this has really increased, I would say we probably receive over 70 caps a week,” Sarah explains.

One of the highest forms of tzedakah is helping a needy bride by making her wedding day joyful, and by presenting her with all she needs to begin her new life. The Jewish Sages explain that one who assists in marrying off a young bride has accomplished the equivalent of giving tzedakah (charity) every day of your life and is protected from sickness and death. A wedding is a girl’s most spectacular and wonderful day of her life. It is our job, as we were commanded, to make sure the bride is ready to start off her new life as a married woman.

Kaps4Kallahs asks for one of the simplest and pain free donations to ensure that these brides are ready for their lives. By just taking a few minutes and typing in the code on the inside of the cover of any Coke products, you can help too. That is all you need to do to help fulfill one of the oldest and highest forms of tzedakah and mitzvah. Start saving today! Take any coke product cover, and that includes everything from Powerade to Sprite, and go to (with a parent’s permission, of course)
www.wix.com/cappenation/kaps4kallahs. Those codes are then taken by the girls running Kaps4Kallahs and entered into their CokeRewards account. When they have accumulated enough points, the team purchases household items (bowls, plates, pots, pans, etc.). Those items are sent to the “Down the Aisle” Kallah gemach who gives them to the needy kallahs.

When entering codes Sarah asks to be very careful, and make sure you are giving the correct code. If it is even one letter or number off, the code will be marked invalid. She also says you do not have to put spaces between the numbers. There are a lot of other tips and more information on the Kaps4Kallahs website.

So what are you waiting for? Go scrounge around and find all of those empty bottles of soda hidden around your house! Help start a kallah’s new life off right!