Ultimate Peace 2010

[Joe Gara]

NEFA Friends,
Becca Tucker and I are headed to Israel in July to teach Ultimate Frisbee to Israeli and Palestinian children at a weeklong clinic on a kibbutz. We will be volunteering for Ultimate Peace, an award winning two year old program. U.P. uses Ultimate as its tool to build bridges across different cultural and social backgrounds around the world.

If you have played at any level you know that Ultimate is absolutely the most fun you can have, almost as fun as Disc Golf. If you are not familiar with Ultimate, it is a non contact team sport that has no referees. Players must self-officiate, relying on mutual respect for each other and “the Spirit of the Game” to resolve their differences on the field. At our camp this summer U.P. will be providing a safe and secure environment for 120 kids giving them the chance to experience the joy of playing Ultimate alongside kids they might otherwise never associate with.

This will be my rookie year as coach, my wife’s second: “Not only did the kids take to the sport like fire to kindling, but boys and girls, Palestinians and Israelis played beautifully together. When we left, the kids and their gym coaches were planning to start school teams.”

The camp will also have a 9 hole portable disc golf course on site, I'll be running the golf side of things, and will push Golf as much as Ultimate. I'm hoping to run a tournement, doubles, basically whatever the organizers will let me get away with! If you have any extra plastic laying around, particularly mids and putters, I'm hoping to bring a few dozen discs to leave at the kibbutz. Shoot me a pm, or call/text me at 845-709-5140.

More important than plastic, we are in the midst of a colossal fundraising effort to pay for 120 kids to come to camp for a week in the West Bank. I’ve never asked anyone for donations before, and am doing so now because I’ve never been so sure that your money will be making an immediate and tangible, but also an immeasurable impact.

To learn more or donate, go to http://www.ultimatepeace.org, or http://www.facebook.com/UltimatePeace. Thank you!

Shalom, Salaam, Peace,

Joe Gara
Team Captain Lawrence

[Titan Bariloni]

good stuff....good luck with your efforts and make sure we can get a glimpse of some pictures.....

edit: this area of the board may not get as much traffic as this post deserves.......

[Craig Cutler]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm15xJyyWVk

[Nick Connell]

Thanks for letting us know, Joe and Becca. I agree that your work is ever so meaningful!