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Quiet Heroes: Youth Volunteers Prepare Kits for Bomb Shelters
Last night at 10 pm a resident of Modi'in, on his evening walk, passed the Community Center and saw the AMEN Volunteers hard at work putting together the activity kits for children to use in bomb shelters up North. He saw the frazzled workers and asked them what was going on. They explained to him that they were in a race against time to put together 300 cardboard boxes containing games and creative activities for children in the North and they did not know if they would finish in time. This man returned home, sent an e-mail to all of his friends calling for additional young persons to volunteer to prepare the kits. At midnight another 150 volunteers showed up to help give the final push. Together, they worked until 3 am preparing 600 kits — double the originally targeted amount of 300 kits.
Unfortunately, one of the six trucks involved in the distribution was hit by a Ketusha rocket as it was being unloaded in Ir Ha'Carmel, a Druze village near Haifa. No one was injured, and only 15 play kits of the approximately 100 kits on board the truck were damaged. Though it was carrying 100 play-kits most of them had already been distributed in other cities. The truck itself suffered minimal damage. The number of play-kits actually delivered: approximately 475 in the north, and 100 in the south. JDC will continue to distribute the play-kits and additional organizations have offered to donate their trucks for this purpose including Fed-Ex, Yad Sarah, "the Movers Union", Home Front Command, and Kod-Kod Toy Company. The following story is a sad testimony to the harsh reality our partners and colleagues live and work in:  "We are fortunate that the Amen volunteers are safe and that there were no casualties. The citizens of Northern Israel are under fire, and so are we as we try to help them, but such setbacks will not hinder us from continuing our efforts to aid the children and vulnerable citizens of Israel, said Arnon, Director of JDC-Israel. Despite these threats, the kits continue to be distributed in order to safeguard the emotional health of shell-shocked children cramped in shelters in Northern Israel. The kits contain board games and crafts projects and each kit is delivered by a volunteer who than spends time in the shelter entertaining and teaching children who are spending days and nights in terror. These children's kits are part of JDC's comprehensive response to ensure that Israel's most vulnerable, the elderly, children and those with disabilities, have their needs met in this time of crisis. JDC has already galvanized it's extensive youth volunteer network (AMEN) to prepare and deliver these kits  July 2006 |
