Chananel Vaknin, a 7th grader at the AMIT Jr. and Sr. High School in Maale Adumim, will finally be able to enjoy the freedom of summer vacation. Chananel suffers from a complicated and rare lung disease, a disease which his brother died from. Throughout the day, Chananel needs to be connected to an oxygen tank and until now, he would only leave his home on a wheelchair, which made things difficult and limiting for him, especially during school vacations.
Chananel’s classmates decided to surprise him and to raise money to buy him an electric mobility scooter. This was done as part of a school project called “Think Beyond Yourself” in which the students were encouraged to take on a project to assist others.
The students needed to raise about NIS 15,000 in order to purchase the scooter. It was a lot of money to raise, but they didn’t despair. They wrote an emotional letter and conducted a fundraising campaign. They met their goal and even managed to exceed it, using the extra funds to install a Shabbat mode so that Chananel could use the scooter on Shabbat.
Last Tuesday, at an emotional ceremony held at the Yad Sarah Municipal Auditorium, attended by students, parents and educational staff, the seventh graders gave the electric scooter to their friend Chananel.
Guy Zino, a 7th grade students who led the fundraising campaign, commented, “Chananel is my friend and when he first mentioned to the class that his dream was to have a scooter that would help him move around independently, I realized that I needed to do whatever I could to get it for him. Seeing Chananel’s excitement when he received the scooter made me very happy and I was very proud of my friends that together we managed to raise the money and caused our friend to be happy and to have independence.”
Daniel Be’eri, the principal of AMIT Maaleh Adumim, said, “This is the biggest education lesson I’ve ever received and I’m sure the students will remember it for life, especially because they achieved this through their own efforts”.
After hearing this story, Benny Kashriel, the mayor of Maaleh Adumim, stated that AMIT Maaleh Adumim is not just a typical school, but a school for life.
Below is a brief clip of Chananel receiving the scooter:
