This was our last morning of electives, and what an emotional morning it was! For many of our NCSY GIVErs, it was hard to say goodbye to the friends they had made, the relationships they had developed and the organzations they had come to feel a part of. One organization, Alei Siach, even threw a goodbye party for our girls and printed them certificates recognizing their contributions. It was remarkable to watch our girls truly impact the lives of others over the course of just 4 days.
We then all met in the Mifletzet and awesome park with a giant monster shaped slide, where we had lunch, chaburahs, and a TON of fun sliding down the monsters tongue (see pictures to further understand what on earth I’m talking about!).
Our next stop was Elvin Israel, where we sang, danced and cheered together with adults who have varied levels of mental and phsycial dusabilities. The residents were glowing after our girls entered the room and lightened up their day.
From there we headed to the home of the Machlis family, a very very holy family who is known for their tremendous acts of chessed, specifically their open door policy on shabbos, where they host over 100 for each meal. Mrs. Machlis shared inspirational words of Torah, shared brachos with us, and told over powerful stories about the power of doing chessed for others and the infinate rewards that are in store for those who make chessed their essence. She then allowed us to participate in making challah with her, teaching about the importance of every ingredient and what it represents, We all took a moment to daven after she made the bracha on hafrashas challah, taking challah, and daven that in the merit of all of her beautiful chessed and the wonderful chessed that GIVE has performed this summer, we will all merit to have our prayers answered fully and quickly. We ended off our time at the Machlis home meeting the newest Machlis grandson who is celebrating his Bris Milah tomorrow. As is customary to say Shema Yisrael with a new born baby the night before his bris, we all joined together to say this timeless passuk for the baby, to fully welcome him into the Jewish people and ask for Hashem to protect him throughout his lifelong journey.
What an inspirational day!