Today, in the middle of our busy day we visited an after school program for Childern at Risk in Yokneam. This program gives a safe place for 15 at risk childern to go after school. The school day in Israel ends around 1:30 because of the 6 day school week and these childern need a place to go to continue to receive attention and grow.
As we entered the building we were immediately greeted with huge smiles from the childern anxious to meet their American guests. After a short briefing on their operation by Ido, the program director we went out and engaged in athletics with the childern who ranged in age from 8-10 years old.
Dave Roberts was immediately a huge hit with some of the more athletic childern by starting a game of basketball along with Doug Kolker. I was immediately adopted by a young lad to learn the Israeli version of paddle ball.
After we played for a while we went over and grilled bread. We started with dough and shaped a pita shaped piece of bread that we threw on the a flat gas grill. It was delicous.
I resumed the athletic activities playing basketball and then soccer with 3 or 4 of the boys. Other Rubinites played Fuze Ball and paddle board with Jill Solomon proving to be prolific in scoring goals in a 2 on 2 soccer game with the childern.
Throughout the activities the childern tried to teach us the names of our activities in Hebrew and we tried to teach them English.
A great time was had by all, especially the childern.