Chabad-Lubavitch of Utah’s Project HEART features in a new book about giving with purpose, author Devin Thorpe’s Your Mark on the World. Thorpe, a native of Utah, contacted Rabbi Benny Zippel after he heard about his dedication to children at risk through Project HEART, which stands for Hebrew Education for At Risk Teens; he ended up devoting his third chapter to the story of Nathan Pingor, a 17-year-old resident of an in-state treatment center whom Zippel visited every week.

Zippel, who has crisscrossed the state to serve Jewish children and teenagers in Utah’s residential homes and treatment facilities for the past 20 years, updates families on their progress and provides a spiritual foundation from which to grow. In Pingor’s case, the teen asked his mother to send a prayer book and prayer boxes known as tefillin, a request the mother chalked up to her son finding purpose in his future.

Zippel, who estimates he visits between 200 and 300 kids each year, said that not only are more and more Jewish children coming to Utah for residential treatment – the state allows parents to send their children to treatment centers without their consent – but that children are starting to arrive at an earlier age. There are now three such centers with kosher kitchens, Zippel pointed out, and the rabbi invites patients to his home for Sabbath meals and holiday celebrations when their doctors feel they are ready.

“What motivates my involvement is that every single one of the children has an infinite amount of goodness within them that they didn’t acknowledge,” said Zippel. “So I reach out and gently allow them to acknowledge that goodness.”