The cease fire went into effect yesterday morning at 8:00 am, more than one month after Israel’s war against the Hezbollah guerrillas began. 1.5 million people in Northern Israel were affected. They say that Haifa is unrecognizable. In the last month, those of us from the post World War II era increased our vocabulary, adding to it the word Katyusha and its meaning as Hezbollah’s signature weapon became all too real.
By the time you get the HOT News, we imagine you will have all heard the statistics. The numbers - staggering; incomprehensible.
Hands On Tzedakah is one, small not-for-profit organization, trying to make a difference in this world. Read about all that was accomplished in a very short time.
Table to Table...During the last two weeks of the conflict, and in response to a request by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare, Table to Table’s efforts focused on providing for residents of Northern communities who took shelter, from Hadera through to Jerusalem, and whose needs had not been systematically addressed by government departments. During this period Table to Table supplied over 1400 meals a day, along with other products, to non-profit organizations sheltering refugees from the North, and also to individual families being hosted by local residents. During this time, Hands On Tzedakah was supplying the funds for 20% of the meals.
Shearim Netanya...Their summer day camp which normally handles up to 40 Olim children from single-parent families was augmented by 29 children from the North between the ages of 3 to 9. Additional staff had to be temporarily hired, additional space had to be secured, and food costs increased. Hands On Tzedakah paid for the extra labor and asked Table to Table to deliver meals to them.
Shalva...Shalva’s Respite Center that normally can house twenty special needs children overnight (which gives their parents and siblings some alone time at home) became home to 20 special needs children and their families from the North. Shalva also absorbed other special needs children into their daily programs. A HOT donor stepped forward from our email campaign with a $10,000 gift designated for Shalva.
Bayit Cham...Their counselors are job coaches for people rehabilitating from emotional and/or mental illness. The employers pay Bayit Cham a stipend for their wages and Bayit Cham in turn pays the rehabilitants minimum wage. Due to the war, the employers from the North could not pay Bayit Cham in July for the June wages that amounted to $6,000. Hands On Tzedakah sent Bayit Cham a check for $6,000.
Lev Ramot...the organization that collects leftover prepared food from catering halls and synagogues and delivers it to the needy families in the Ramot section of Jerusalem, through the government - was sent 100 families to help. Lev Ramot provided them with bed sheets, mattresses, diapers and dried foods. Each package cost $44 and the food lasted 7 – 10 days. HOT became a partner with Lev Ramot in this project.
Organization to Support the Fiancées of Fallen Soldiers of the Israel Defense Force...A fiancée has no legal rights, no status when their boyfriend (or girlfriend) is killed. For the last 9 years, this organization has organized group therapy sessions of 10 participants that meet weekly for one year with a professional therapist. Over 100 soldiers from the IDF were killed in the last month. When that number was 42, there were already 14 fiancées who would never see their wedding day with their betrothed. At that time, Hands On Tzedakah committed enough funds to start two new groups.
Dave’s Kitchen...in Hadera is very small. Normally, he packages cooked food in plastic containers for the needy. Dave told us, “I have been inundated with calls day and night for need of food from poor families that have had to flee their homes or had them destroyed from the North and have come to our area with next to nothing. I have been able to buy food. My wife has done cooking and we have been able to supply all who needed.” Hands On Tzedakah gave Dave enough money for extra food.
Meled...is a small but very special high school in Jerusalem – a high school for students who have not succeeded elsewhere. Eli works there. Eli felt he had to do something to help so he amidst the falling Katyushas, he drove to Nahariya with games and toys for children in bomb shelters. When he returned home he asked HOT if we would like to help out with a second trip. We did. And then Eli, in the infantry, was called up to go to the Syrian border as part of a troop build-up to counter the massive troop build-up on the Syrian side. There for a short while, he was able to return home because his wife is due to have a baby imminently. But Eli was able to see first hand that there are many things the reserve soldiers need that the army is not supplying.
In Kiryat Shemona...Through our agent in Israel, Arnie Draiman, Hands On Tzedakah supplied a food delivery for 120 families, universal power supplies for school computers in Kiryat Shemona, antibiotics for kids, cut toilet paper, wet naps, feminine hygiene products and cosmetics for people in shelters.
Back to topAugust 2nd, 2006
Hands On Tzedakah has been in constant contact with our partners in Israel whose projects and programs we, and you, help support. Almost all of them have now expanded their activities to help the refugees that have come from the North. No one knows how long they will be displaced, when the missiles will stop, whether more individuals will lose their homes, or how much time will be needed to get them back on their feet.
We are proud to say that our partners have taken the necessary steps to deal with the crisis, but they are using the limited cash they have on hand to pay for services that are a MUST at this time. That cash is fast running out, and not only does it need to be replenished to continue caring for the victims of the crisis, but their day to day work of feeding the poor, caring for the physically and mentally challenged, providing summer camp for the local children, running schools, taking care of the infirm and providing services for the elderly still needs to be funded.
We are forced to ask you, our donors for immediate help so that we may forward on the money to help these victims of Hezbollah. While we would like to say this will be it, this is not the case. We will be coming back to you next month to ask you for help financing our regular and growing list of critical, life altering projects.
Gifts for this emergency can either be (i) charged by credit card by going to our web site http://www.handsontzedakah.org/ and clicking on Network for Good (ii) sending to our office at 2255 Glades Road, Suite 324A, PMB#1114, Boca Raton, FL 33431 (iii) transfers of securities can be arranged by calling Rose Robinson @ (561) 883-2293. As with all gifts to HOT, the gift can either be designated (see a list of projects we are reporting on below) or can be undesignated (allowing us to decide which project(s) over the next few weeks, most desperately need help).
A partial list of what our partners are doing follows. You will continue to hear from us as updates and new and changing needs and requests come in.
Shearim Netanya is a small day care center dedicated to helping Russian immigrants that provides breakfast and lunch for children ages 2 to 5 and afternoon activities for school age children. During the summer the age limit is stretched to 11 making it possible for parents to go to work without having to worry about their children. Hands On Tzedakah provided a grant to Shearim Netanya for this summer, underwriting the critical summer care activity for children of single parent families. So far, they have taken in 16 children from the North into its summer program free of charge, relieving the families who found refuge in Netanya. Ervin Birnbaum, the director, writes us, “In one case a mother from Haifa with four children, housed by a relative, was forced to take her youngest -- two months old -- to the Schneider Children's Hospital in Petach Tikva for an indeterminate time and was at a loss of what to do with their 3 and 8 year olds. They have been under our care for the last five days, happy and smiling. On Sunday we are getting two new children from Kiryat Bialik whose parents are deaf and mute. By early next week we will most probably get additional inquiries. In every case I am accepting for one week, a period which is renewable. Day camps in Netanya close at the end of July. Ours continues so we will probably be besieged by requests. Presently we have children from Z'fat, the Krayot, Karmi'el, Haifa and Shlomi. All this would not be possible if not for the help of "Hands on Tzedakah" to whom I wish to extend my deep gratitude.” While Shearim Netanya continues to take in more children, the pressure and costs will increase substantially and they will need far more help.
Shalva, is a not-for-profit organization in Israel, which provides comprehensive programs for special needs children between the ages of 4 and 29. Me & My Mommy is an innovative program for new moms of special needs newborns to age 3. The HOT Transportation Fund helps some of them get to Shalva in the cold of winter and the heat of summer. But now, the Jerusalem based Shalva is working overtime to provide shalva (translated as peace of mind) to families with special needs children from the targeted areas in the north. They have already absorbed more than a dozen special needs children into its programs, ranging in age from 5 years old to 20. Shalva’s commitment to accommodate these terrorized families and their challenged children took a new direction in the second week of the crisis. An entire group of challenged children, residents of an institution in northern Israel, arrived on Shalva’s doorstep in Jerusalem where they will be housed, fed, and cared for as long as needed in Shalva’s respite center, which is equipped to sleep up to 20 children overnight. Kalman Samuels, founder and director of Shalva, tells us that requests to take in challenged evacuees keep coming. They are hiring additional staff and request that any funds we can provide will be a “tremendous shot in the arm.”
Table to Table is a food rescue network in Israel whose mission is to collect leftover prepared food and then distribute it to social service organizations serving those in need. This organization is helping HOT expand its “Sandwich A Day For Every Child” program to parts of Israel beyond Jerusalem. However, 2 ½ weeks ago they began a Northern Relief Operation to help the families in the North. With stores throughout the region closed and missiles falling, residents are unable to leave their homes to purchase food and necessary supplies. Families are hunkered down in bomb shelters for days on end. The concern of Hands On Tzedakah and Table to Table is the challenge of keeping up with the changing needs of those who have stayed in the north and those who moved south to escape the bombing. At this point there is a sense that there are a lot of organizations attempting to care for those who have opted to stay on in the north. But those who have moved south and are living in dormitories, hostels etc… are feeling the strain and are not receiving the attention of their northern counterparts. As a result, we support the shift to help those in the center of the country by attempting to insure as many of them as possible receive a hot meal on a daily basis. The cost of a hot meal including delivery is $3.00. Today’s requests were for 550 meals. It is anticipated that this number will go up to 2,000 but funds are needed to supply them.
The mission of Bayit Cham in B’nai Braq is rehabilitation of people with emotional and/or mental illness. The rehabilitants are employed by local businesses with Bayit Cham counselors working next to them as steady support. The employers pay Bayit Cham a small stipend and the Israeli government supplements with disability. Bayit Cham makes up the rest of the wages to pay the rehabilitants a minimum wage. From that paycheck comes the financial value and a source to draw encouragement and self-appreciation. Because of the war, the rehabilitants in the North will no longer have a paycheck. Many shops and factories were forced to close. Even if a factory or shop opens up again for a few hours the rehabilitant will be the last worker to be brought back onto the job. The counselors in the North no longer have to oversee the rehabilitants in their work place, but they are still being paid a full salary. They are dealing with their own families, danger and tension and they are emotionally supporting the rehabilitants who are the first people in danger of collapse from the fear and tension the war causes. The employers have not yet paid Bayit Cham for the rehabilitants’ wages for June. The counselors need to be paid. Bayit Cham needs our help.
Eli Bialik, who works for Meled High School in Jerusalem (where HOT has given out grants for tutoring), has made one trip to bring toys and games to children in bomb shelters in Nahariya. On the way there, the sirens started to wail. Eli is a reserve infantry soldier who recalled being under fire years ago in Gaza. He told us that the first seconds of the sirens going off are more worrisome than actually being fired upon. The feeling being, “Uh Oh, what do I do now…” So, he ran the red light he was at, and maneuvered the car to a street where there was better cover from the Katyushas. He came across a group of people huddled next to a building, and stopped the car and joined their protected environs. When Eli finally got to the emergency response center at the bomb-shelter in Nahariya, people had been underground for 5 days, and there were rockets still falling. Eli had a personal need to do this. He is going back and HOT is going to help him.
Hands On Tzedakah, Inc.
http://www.handsontzedakah.org
(561) 883-2293
(561) 451-6185 (fax)
