Sderot Students Fund NIS 50,000 Trip to Kiryat Shmona
A group of tenth-grade girls from Be'eri Ulpana are raising funds for a three-day community service project in the north, while other local initiatives continue to support residents in the aftermath of the war.
By Natalia Costa ·
Students from the Be'eri Ulpana in Sderot have launched a fundraising campaign to support their upcoming trip to Kiryat Shmona. The group, comprised of tenth-grade girls, intends to spend three days volunteering in the northern city. They are currently raising NIS 50,000 to cover the costs of their community service project, which includes purchasing board games for local schools and shopping at regional businesses.
The students submitted a detailed partnership proposal outlining their specific plans. Their itinerary includes a project to interview 20 longtime residents of Kiryat Shmona. They intend to publish a special newsletter honoring these individuals. The students noted that their own experience of evacuation and hardship in Sderot drives their desire to assist in the north.
"We're heading to Kiryat Shmona, all the way from Sderot, for three days of volunteering and community service," the group wrote. "Every donation we receive by next week will help us bring light to Kiryat Shmona."
In a separate initiative, Dr. Eliezer Be'eri of ALYN Hospital has partnered with his wife, Shira, to promote a program called "Nice to Meet You." The project began after Dr. Be'eri suffered a cardiac arrest during a squash game and was admitted to the hospital as an unidentified patient. Shira hung a photograph and brief biography of her husband beside his bed. The first nurse to see the poster told Shira that the gesture was inspiring.
The couple has since promoted the concept to help medical staff view patients as whole persons rather than just medical files. Volunteers create personalized posters for hospital departments. To date, the initiative has produced approximately 3,000 of these displays.
Rabbi Moshe Shachor of the Ein Yehudit organization in Sderot shared details from the Keshet School in the Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council. The school helped write letters into a new Torah scroll. The ceremony took place three years after the October 7 attacks, fulfilling a wish made by Ofir Libstein, the former head of the Regional Council, who was killed that day. The new head, Uri Epstein, attended the event. Epstein’s son, Neta, and his mother, Bilha, were also killed during the attacks.
The schoolchildren wrote letters in the scroll in memory of Libstein and other victims from Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The scroll will eventually be brought to the kibbutz. Rabbi Shachor stated that the moment felt like the fulfillment of a mission entrusted to them by Libstein.
