Today we started off the morning going down south on a two hour bus ride to the city of Be’er Sheva. When we got to the school for disabled children, we got to decide between two options, painting the school to make it more beautiful or to work with the kids who have disabilities. I personally choose to work with the children! We split into groups of ten and made our way into different classrooms of varying ages. To walk in and see their smiling faces was just a truly amazing experience. At first I thought that it was going to be hard because not only were they handicapped but, there was also a language barrier. But just by playing with them, we were able to overcome those very challenges. My group colored, passed a ball around, played an indian chief type game and danced and sang. As the bell rang and it was time to end, we all went down to the main area and danced and sang with everyone…disabled or not!
After that we went to a field to participate in a special organization called Leket. There, we picked crates upon crates of tomatoes that are then given to soup kitchens or to the poor. Between goofing off and throwing and juggling the tomatoes around, in the end it was really a cool experience to help out. In total, we gathered 1,600 pounds of tomatoes! Doing that made me feel like I’m really working the land in order to give back to people of Israel!
-Topaz Golan, Cleveland, OH