 ORT Israel Hope Campaign |
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Our ORT Israel family is suffering. With more than 100,000 students, 8,000 teachers and staff, and
140 schools, the escalating violence in Israel is having a demoralizing and terrorizing effect on our
students, their families and their communities. In addition to the terrible personal toll that the
Intifada has taken, the increase in terrorism has forced the Israeli government to divert more than
$13 million dollars in funding away from ORT programs to pay for necessary security measures throughout
the country. As a result, more than 200 teaching positions have had to be eliminated and crucial tutoring
and support services for students have been suspended throughout the ORT Israel network. As always, our
schools remain beacons of hope, but those beacons are weak. "The violence which besets the Jewish State and the financial problems that come in its wake make ORT's mission both more crucial and more difficult" said Richard Goldstone, President of World ORT. Special emergency counseling and grief therapy programs have been initiated at a number of schools around the country. Unemployment has so severely impacted some communities that ORT has begun a free lunch service to ensure that students receive at least one hot meal a day. In order to help ORT Israel make up for the major reductions in government funding, and to enable ORT Israel schools to provide critical counseling services to their students and staff, Women's American ORT has launched the ORT Israel Hope Campaign (OIHC). We have received a $200,000 challenge grant for the ORT Israel Hope Campaign and need to raise the matching funds by June 30, 2002. Please consider making a contribution that will go directly to the ORT schools. Please send your check, payable to Women's American ORT, to Hayley Smith, 1244 Westwood Street, Redwood City, CA, 94061. Thank you for your support in this time of need. |
