“We are not volunteers helping disadvantaged youth.”
Neoray Kaholy, a rising 9th grader at AMIT Florin Taman High School for Boys in Tzfat, has been a counselor with Krembo Wings for the past two years. When asked who inspired him at AMIT, he replied: “Rav Eldad, who is my homeroom teacher, really inspires me. I grew up with the idea that serving God was all about learning, learning, learning. Rav Eldad, with all his energy, taught me that you can also serve God through doing, and always being happy. To be happy from nothing and everything.”
There are many organizations that help kids and adults with disabilities. What makes Krembo Wings unique, is their goal is to integrate kids with disabilities into “regular” youth groups, where the participants are a mix of kids with and without disabilities. Disabilities range from minor to severe and groups have kids from second grade through the age of 21. In the words of one of the participants: “I feel like a normal girl when I’m with Krembo Wings.”
Volunteering for Krembo Wings is not always easy. According to Neoray: “We are not volunteers helping disadvantaged youth. We are simply a youth group that has different types of participants and I love it. I get tremendous satisfaction from doing it, but at the level I am now as a counselor it is very hard. I work all week to prepare programming for my participants. But it’s worth every second. It makes everyone’s day – the parents, the participants and mine.”
