Dror Israel’s youth movement prepares and distributes Purim parcels to medical staff in Haifa’s hospitals.
Dror Israel’s youth movement had an amazing idea- to prepare Purim parcels (Mishloach Manot) with youth participants in Haifa and then distribute them to the medical staff of the many hospitals throughout the city. The youth movement spoke to the Haifa Municipality, the Youth Authority and the Histadrut in Haifa about cooperation on the initiative. The plan was for the youth movement participants to donate sweets and snacks from home with which to fill the parcels.
Tal Valentine, director of Dror Israel’s Beit Hatzeirim after-school program in the Hadar neighborhood of the city, explained how embarrassed he felt when the program’s counselors noted that the plan was not relevant for most of the kids in the program because their families would have a hard time buying the sweets for the packages. And why should these underprivileged kids be buying things for doctors, anyway?
“I thought, at first, that the neighborhood just wouldn’t participate,” said Tal, “But part of our educational philosophy is that all of these kids have something to contribute to the world.”
Tal called various friends of the program throughout the neighborhood and asked if they could help out with buying sweets: “Wait, you’re asking me for a donation to purchase sweets for medical staff in Haifa so that the kids can have something to give?” I answered: “Yes, exactly. What every kid and every person needs more than sweets is the chance to give of themselves.”
Fortunately, our good friends came through. He picked up boxes full of sweets and the kids from the neighborhood organized the packages and made cards for the medical staff.
They then loaded up all of the packages into the car and went down to Filman Geriatric Hospital.
Tal adds, “I was expecting to just leave the boxes by the front desk, but the staff insisted that we walk around and give them to each ward in person. It was amazing to put smiles on the faces of our medical staff who have been fighting on the front lines of this pandemic for a whole year now.”
Happy Purim!