University student organizes volunteer trip to Israel

Over winter break, sophomore Sheldon Low, along with a group of 26 other college students from schools around the nation, called SIMLeV, traveled to Israel to participate in community service and show their solidarity for the embattled nation. Organized by Low and his sister _ a senior at Barnard College _ the trip was funded thanks to over $20,000 in donations from private sources.

In Hebrew SIMLeV means pay attention, or take it to heart. This name also doubles as an acronym in English, standing for Student Initiated Mission Leaders and Volunteers. The group is working to become a non-profit, national organization.

With Low, the lone Tufts representative, and his sister, Florence, leading the way, participants were in charge of the fundraising and planning of the trip. According to Low, the group solicited donations from prominent people in their various communities who were familiar with the Israeli cause.

"We mostly used word of mouth," Low said. "I'd say everyone had a hand in the development and the realization of our goal."

In order to plan their trip and decide which service projects to do, the group used every available personal connection. In addition, they worked with a travel agent and the leader of a charity organization called Viv, which aids in connecting organizations in Israel and America.

Each of the 27 students took with them a duffle bag full of donated medical and school supplies.

While the group was in Israel, it participated in a variety of different service projects _ ranging from painting houses to donating blood _ for 11 hours a day, Sunday through Friday. One of those projects was painting houses and schools. "We worked with the kids at schools to make their schools beautiful," Low said. "We also helped them plant flowers, and we painted their playhouse. They loved it."

Because of the Israeli health insurance system, medical supplies are expensive and difficult to come by. This inspired another of the group's projects, which was to build walkers to lend to people.

The group also ran a soup kitchen, which functioned differently from one in America. "In Israel, it's really important not to take away people's dignity," Low said, "so our soup kitchen was in the form of a fancy restaurant, where we would wait on people and bring them whatever they asked us for."

The group also donated 15 bags of blood to the MDA, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. The MDA needs 1200 bags of blood per day, but only receives 900.

During its stay, the group also spent a few hours putting together over 700 food packets for Meals on Wheels and visited various hospitals to cheer up patients. "Our small number didn't hinder us from doing some really great things," Low said.

"One thing that is really important is that with almost all of the organizations that we helped, it didn't matter who you were or where you were from. It didn't matter if you were Christian, Israeli, American _ they didn't even pay attention to categorizing" Low said.

While many of the students who participated hope to be able to continue this sort of service with future trips, the main difficulty lies in raising the necessary financial resources.