"Darden" Day at Galil

Today, folksinger Dar Williams came to visit Machaneh Galil! She is a nationally recognized artist from Upstate New York. At machaneh she is best known for her songs "Iowa," and "The Babysitter's Here," which we often sing together. 

Dar meeting the chanichim

While Dar was here, she worked with the chanichim to plant a bee friendly garden, that will now be known as the "Darden" (Dar Williams Garden). Dar has been touring summer camps for the past few summers, planting flowers and giving out milkweed seeds -- the Monarch Butterfly's only source of food. Dar's passion is planting because the critical population of honeybees is being impacted by the lack of pollen producing plants. Dar also distributed milkweed seeds to every chanich so that they will take them home and plant them in areas near them, to provide food for the Monarchs in a widespread area. Monarch butterflies are on a 90% decline, and while milkweed is easy to grow, it is getting harder to find.

Chanichim planting and watering the new flowers of the Darden

In the afternoon, Dar treated us to a concert! We invited our alumni, which was incredibly powerful. She performed Iowa, and we surprised her by singing along to all the words. Dar also explained the rationale behind many of her songs, which we were excited to hear because we love her music so much.

Dar performing with her daughter

After the concert, we all said our goodbyes to Dar and continued with our usual Friday schedule. Our second performance of the day will be the Chotrim as they host Shabbat this evening.