We Love Repairing the World!

Today was a busy day! The Bonim left today for a 2 day hiking trip (tiyul) and will return tomorrow afternoon! They were all very excited to be able to spend the next 2 days with their age group (shikvah) while camping! 

They weren’t the only campers (chanichim) to leave machaneh today. The Amelim, Chotrim, and Sayarim went on Tikkun Olam today. Tikkun Olam means repairing the world. Every summer the chanichim do a tikkun olam project usually outside of machaneh. Today, the chanichim went to Urban Tree Connection in Philadelphia. Urban Tree Connection creates community gardens in urban areas as well as distributes produce in low income areas. The particular garden the chanichim went to today was in West Philadelphia.

Today they weeded the garden and picked up any trash where plants were growing. We pulled up invasive weeds, composted those weeds, and even played with bugs! The neighborhood kids came out to the garden while we were there to help us out and to play with the chanichim! Everyone had a lot of fun together! After all of the weeding was done we ate a picnic lunch and drank lots of water! All of the chanichim had a really meaningful day and really grasped the idea of repairing the world. Look out for pictures from tikkun olam tomorrow! 

As you can imagine machaneh felt a lot smaller today because only the Tzophim, Bogrim, and Madatz were here. However, the Tzophim also had a special day. Today was Yom Tzophim. Yom Tzophim (Tzophim Day) is a day planned by the chanichim themselves and they spend the entire day together. In the morning they had a small sleep-in which everyone was excited about after a tiring visiting day! The tzophim then had breakfast in their cabins (tzrif)! In the morning they played different games together that they planned for each other. As the day went on, it also got warmer outside so the next activities involved water games! One of their favorite activites today was the slip n’ slide that they built for themselves! They built the slip n' slide on the hill near the parking lot with tarps, soap and hoses. They all had so much fun sliding down the hill! In the afternoon they went on a short hike in the creek together from the parking lot to the other end of the creek. 

The tzophim had so much fun together today and the best part about the day was that they planned it for themselves! 

Tonight we are having a fun evening activity (tochnit erev) in the dining hall (chadar ochel ). The theme is Vegas and during dinner there is going to be different shows put on by the staff (tzevet) and different card games going on. Pictures to come tomorrow!