See What’s Out There

My daughter Dorianna (11) has undertaken a project to help some families in Israel that were hurt by the recent war. I was so impressed by Beth Kanter’s success using the ChipIn fundraising widget that I decided we should give it a try as well. You can help us reach her goal by donating directly here. (And, if you have a blog or MySpace page you can paste the ChipIn widget into your site as well.) Please read Dori’s letter below and it will explain why you should help.

Hi, my name is Dorianna Hoffman (Dori for short) and I first got involved in this project because my Bat-Mitzvah is coming up. My Bat-Mitzvah will be celebrated in Israel. My mom and I had several ideas on a project but we weren’t sure which one to choose. I’ve lived in Israel for almost 5 years (1997-2001) and it hurts me to see Israel suffering because of the war and I wanted to do something to help, even if it was only helping one person.

My family’s good friend has been living in Israel for the past three years and she wanted to do something to help Israel recover after the war. She started a little organization called The Acheinu Minyan and my mom and I decided that that would be a great project to do. Acheinu Minyan bridges between ten American Jewish families, and two needy Israeli families who suffered during the war with Lebanon. Acheinu Minyan is Hebrew for Our Brothers In A Group. Our family is part of this group and we committed to raise a thousand dollars by the end of December.

Let me tell you about the two families’ that we are committed to helping, one of them lives in Kiryat Motzkin. The father was in the street this past summer when an air raid siren and a Katyusha rocket landed right next to him. A part of a shrapnel got in his right hip and in his leg and later on the doctors figured out that he also had some in his foot. He was unable to go to work. The second family lives in Tzfat and their father died when a Katyusha rocket directly hit him. They have four children boys aged seven and five who are deaf, a boy aged four and a girl aged three. The mother is unable to work because she has to take care of the kids.

Our plan for raising money is to send out this awareness letter and to sell little things like painted rocks, and maybe have a read-a-thon. I will contribute some money from my Bat-Mitzvah money for this cause. The money is being distributed through an organization called ATZUM (www.ATZUM.org).

When I first heard about the war during the summer I wasn’t that concerned. No one told me what was really happening, I couldn’t be. But then slowly I started getting information about what was really happening and I felt terrible. I had a lot of friends in Israel and one good family friend who lived up north. I felt like while I was here relaxing at my camp and with my friends, there were people who were living in shelters because their houses were gone. I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what. That’s why I liked the idea of using this as my project.

Hannukah is coming up and we light the candles and think of the miracles in our lives. We can help bring warmth and miracles to other Jews. Please donate from my dad’s blog at http://blog.see3.net for any amount you can, it all helps.

Thank you so much for your help,
Dori Hoffman

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Nonprofits, Web Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.