Knives at the Ready: RIT Center for Religious Life Prepares for Annual ‘PB Jam’ Feb. 8

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A. Sue Weisler

The annual PB Jam, organized by RIT’s Center for Religious Life, donates peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to Rochester’s needy.

Student, faculty and staff volunteers working with Rochester Institute of Technology’s Center for Religious Life will don paper hats and plastic knives as they provide Rochester’s hungry with the most basic of comfort foods.

The annual PB Jam will be held 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Feb. 8 in RIT’s Student Alumni Union. Organizers hope to make 2,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the 4-hour timeframe and deliver them to Rochester-area organizations such as Open Door Mission, AIDS Rochester, House of Mercy and the Salvation Army. PB Jam is a community effort; the bread is donated by Foodlink and the peanut butter and jelly is donated by Wegmans.

“PB Jam is a phenomenal event that allows RIT students, faculty and staff to give back to the Rochester community while having a great time,” says Jeremy Friedman, RIT’s Hillel program director and event organizer. “The event is especially beneficial for our students because many of them come from outside the Rochester area and don’t know about the parts of our city that need the most help until they participate in this program. And in this tough economic time, it has become increasingly important to give back to our community any way that we can.”