Our friends at the Forgotten People Fund shared Zahava’s story recently and when we learned about her ambitions and her bright educational promise we knew the Good People Fund should step in to help make some of her dreams a reality. Zahava herself is a sabra, though her parents and two siblings came from Ethiopia about 20 years ago. Now being raised by her mother, Zahava, only 16, is the family star. One of six children, she excels in school and numerous extracurricular programs including recent participation in the prestigious Samai Program, a 2 week trip to Ethiopia set up by an Ethiopian reporter with the Hebrew newspaper “Yediot Achronot”, to help Ethiopian teenagers regain the identity they have lost in Israel. Zahava was interviewed by the paper and appeared on TV talking about her experiences on the Samai journey. With such promise, we decided that buying her a laptop would be an excellent investment in this young woman’s future.
As we learned this morning, Zahava “still can’t believe that she has her own laptop! You did a real mitzvah.” Indeed, our donors did!

I wish to thank you for your amazing support. The treatments helped and I feel very happy with the result. It was very difficult to have a tattoo that disgraced my status. Now, thank G-d, I feel I am complete as a Jew and not looking different than who I really am.

Last May we shared the story of two young Ethiopian women from the Falash Mura community. The young women are part of a program that fosters volunteer work, education and leadership training. While still in Ethiopia custom dictated that the Falash Mura were tattooed with the mark of a cross on the forehead and hand. Whether this was to avoid persecution by Christians is up for debate, but several years ago the Chief Rabbi in Israel did accept the aliyah of this group. These two women had the markings and as a result were ostracized not only by their peers but also by the children in the schools where they volunteer.

This morning we received the short note quoted above. The writer, Dasash, was one of the women whose treatment was covered by the Good People Fund. Included was this picture.

How little it took to make such a profound difference in the lives of these two young women.

It was certainly no surprise to us to hear about MSNBC’s holiday feature on our friend Jack Hairston III, aka Jack the Bikeman.
One of Jack’s main activities is to collect and repair used bikes which he gives away to local kids each December.

Take a few minutes to watch this clip. It reminds us of just why the Good People Fund loves to support Jack’s work. CLICK BELOW

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The morning’s emails included this shot taken by Gideon Ben-Ami, our friend in Tel Aviv who has been such an integral part of the breakfast program we ran last winter for the African refugees in Levinsky Park. Gideon, with a long career in food service and restaurant ownership, spends a great deal of his time gathering leftovers from local bakeries, supermarkets, cafes and more. This Friday’s “take” yielded over 1000 sufganiyot, Israel’s answer to Dunkin’ Donuts and Krispy Kreme. Rather than end up in a dumpster, Gideon made sure to get them to various shelters for all to enjoy. We imagine the incidence of indigestion in that city was on the rise this morning.

Dear Naomi,

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! We greatly appreciate your generous gift to O.D.W. Broad Meadows! We have so many great ideas for using the new MacBook Pro!

We are sending you a photo of the moment we opened the box, we were so SURPRISED! (We actually took the picture with the new camera you bought us too!!)

Sincerely,

O.D.W. Broad Meadows (Quincy Kids)

For over ten years we’ve been following the amazing  activists from Broad Meadows Middle School in Quincy, MA. All of the kids are dedicated to improving the lives of children around the world and through the generosity of one of the Good People Fund’s donors who heard their story, several new tools including this great MacBook Pro were sent to help them with their work. This one was a real hit!