More Tikkun Olam!

In the beginning of the summer, the Bogrim (post-9th grade campers) received a grant from the Jewish Teen Funders Network of $1,500 to give to an organization of their choice.   The grant is thanks to the JTFN Camp Philanthropy Pilot Program.  Galil also participated in 2011 when the Bogrim visited and eventually chose the Broad Street Ministry in Philadelphia as their site.
All summer this year's Bogrim participated in different activities (peulot) discussing various organizations where they would like to donate the money. After a long process, the Bogrim narrowed their options down to two organizations. Today, they boarded buses to visit these final two sites to get a better sense of what the organizations do each day. They first visited a familiar organization to Galil: Urban Tree Connection. During first session, the younger campers (chanichim) did their "healing the world" (tikkun olam) project at one of Urban Tree Connection’s sites.  Urban Tree Connection is an organization that creates urban gardens in inner-city communities.  Galil campers have been there multiple times over the past two summers as well as during our year-round program (eizor).   Today, the Bogrim visited the main farming site and met with two workers to learn more about the organization. After Urban Tree Connection, the Bogrim boarded the bus to University of Pennsylvania’s campus for a picnic lunch. They relaxed a bit and discussed what they thought about their first visit. Next stop: Neighborhood BikeWorks. This organization has camps in three different locations throughout the Philadelphia area. At these camps the kids learn how to make bikes from scratch and at the end of the summer the kids are able to keep the bikes that they built. The Bogrim have not made any decisions yet and will take time on Friday to discuss where they would like to donate their grant.  It was a great day, full of learning, fantastic questions, and hands-on philanthropy!

Back at camp, the chanichim had a normal scheduled day. During workshops (sadnaot) this afternoon, the Amelim (post-3rd and 4th grade campers) and Chotrim (post-5th grade campers) went to the Israel sad’na. At the Israel sad’na the chanichim learn all about Israel in a fun way. In order to learn about Israel, the chanichim had to “fly” there. 

The Amelim and Chotrim each received El-Al flight tickets. The madrichim pretended to be flight attendants and seated all of the chanichim in two rows. After everyone was in the flight they took off and watched the safety video El-Al provides before each flight. They eventually landed in Israel and learned all about the country.

The Sayarim went on the low ropes course today. We have two ropes course, the high ropes and the low ropes course. Because the high ropes course is only available to the older chanichim, we use the low ropes course for the younger chanichim. The low ropes course has a lot of team building elements and trust elements. The Sayarim worked together to complete the different elements and are really excited for next year when they are able to use the high ropes course!