Students who are still in high school make up a large part of your target audience. Ideally, you want to get them involved before they even step on campus! If you remember your first few days at college, you were probably a bit overwhelmed by the sea of organizations. Wouldn’t it have been nice to know something about KESHER ahead of time, and perhaps to know some people involved in it?

There are several ways of reaching high school students. You can invite students to come to Shabbat services, and perhaps have them stay overnight with hosts from your group. This can be done by connecting with nearby congregations and NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth) regions. You can bring a rabbi or youth group adviser along with his or her group of students. UC Berkeley invited NFTY-Northern California to its campus and the NFTYites helped to create their most exciting Shabbat of the year! A special service is the perfect way to start your new group of freshmen and attract them to KESHER. This is especially important for juniors and seniors in high school who are still applying to schools and deciding where they might want to go. Take this opportunity to bring them to campus—you might even want to show them around, or incorporate your event with an on-campus, university-run information day and set them up on an official tour. There isn’t a better way to attract students to your group than to be the ones influential in persuading them to come to your school.

NFTY is an asset to your group; you can encourage high school students to continue their involvement in Judaism. Most NFTY regions have some sort of senior conclave, special senior programming, or final event. You might want to contact the regional adviser and offer to speak to this group. Give the group general information about Kesher, tell them about the first event of the year at your school, and tell them that many other schools have Kesher groups too. Ask where seniors are going, and possibly bring copies of the KESHER Directory so you can on the spot, give them a contact name, someone to look up on campus. In addition, gather the names and addresses (both home and school if they have them) of incoming freshman and where they are going to school. Over the summer, mail a letter to them at home reminding them about Kesher so that they have a place and event to go to at the beginning of the year, and also give names and numbers of your group’s leaders or other people who will act as mentors and friends and help them out the first few weeks on campus. (See Appendix 8 for a sample letter.) Periodic communication with regional advisers and rabbis will help you to spread this message. Regional NFTY personnel are listed on the back of the KESHER Directory.

Try to convey to younger students a message of the importance of a Jewish community as a part of their college selection process.  Ask them what they would do if they wished to observe their Holy Days, but attended a school with a weak or nonexistent Jewish community.  Give them concrete examples of the benefits of attending a school with an active Hillel and Kesher chavurah.  Don’t forget, they are the next leaders of your community.  A Jewish community should be a priority as they search for their future college.

In order to obtain additional names, contact local synagogues as well as those from which your school draws many students. Ask the Rabbi there to discuss KESHER with his/her students as part of graduation. Even better, ask to speak about it yourself at a class or meeting. Talk about your Kesher chavurah, and ask the students if they have any questions about going to college in general. The timing of your visit can be important—you must ask yourself if you want to reach students as they begin to decide what colleges they want to apply to, or if it is better to contact them later when they are deciding where to go. By the time you know where people are going, it is time to do more targeted or selective "marketing." Think back, though, to your senior year, and remember how all anyone could discuss was where you and all your friends were going to school. Now, your ultimate goal is to make your Kesher chavurah a part of that decision. Good luck!

Most important, you want to let all seniors know that there are Kesher chavurot across the country. You want to persuade them not to lose their Jewish connection and, in many cases, their tight NFTY bond.