Connecticut natives work to build camp in Israel
MARA DRESNER
Connecticut Jewish Ledger
Marilyn and Murray Grant have a dream - that seriously ill children, Jewish and Arab, will have a camp to call their own in the Middle East.
The Grants, West Hartford, Conn., natives who made aliyah in 1971, are hard at work at making The Jordan River Village (JRV), a reality. The idea to start a Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (HITWG) in Israel began about eight years ago, when the Grants attended a jazz concert in Essex, Conn. The concert was to benefit the Hole in the Wall Gang.
On the trip back to Israel, reading the brochure, they noticed that their friend Simon Konover served on the board of directors for the Hole in the Wall Gang camps (Konover currently serves on the advisory council). They wrote to Konover, and in September 1999, the first meeting between the Grants and the HITWG was held.
"We thought there was a great need for such a camp in Israel. Marilyn, working in Afula at that time, saw pasty-faced immigrant children from the former Soviet Union being driven twice a week to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. This 'cancer run' was necessary because the Emek Hospital in Afula didn't have a pediatric oncology department," Murray remembers.
The process to be approved by the HITWG is long and involved.
"What happens is an organization or a group of people, like the Grants, make contact with us and we go through a series of discussions... to try to validate the legitimacy of the group.... The evaluation usually takes months," explains Bob Kaufman, executive director of the Association of HITWG Camps, Inc.
"Then, the process is the board of the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps makes a recommendation that a particular group be accepted into the family of Hole in the Wall Camps. ...They have to put the organization and board together. They are ultimately responsible for raising the funds.
"The status is this camp has been accepted into the family," he adds. The Jordan River Village will be located on a 50-acre site in the Lower Galilee region, 15 miles from Afula. The camp will serve 80-100 children during each camping period.
The Grants estimate that they are three years away from opening the camp. Their goal is to raise $25 million to build 30 buildings plus recreational facilities.
Despite the long road ahead, the couple is encouraged by their progress thus far.
"The involvement of volunteer professionals, both Jewish and Arab, is very impressive, even to us," says Murray. "The JRV will have international implications and have four major objectives - to give these children a free, fun-filled, medically-safe vacation; to improve their sense of self-worth; to provide similar programs for their parents and siblings; and to quietly promote co-existence among Jews and Arabs." Hole in the Wall Gang Camps exist in several locations in the United States, including the original camp, started by Paul Newman in Ashford, Conn., as well as in Ireland and France.
However, the situation in the Middle East lends special challenges to the task of founding a camp.
"Certainly, it has its risks," admitted Kaufman. "I think our view is that there are sick children all over the world. To the extent we're able, we'd like to lend them back a little bit of their childhood that's been taken away because of their disease. It doesn't matter whether it's Louisiana or the Lower Galilee. We think that Israel has the capacity to do this. This is in no way a political statement. We are trying hard to make sure the world understands that our only interest is sick children."
For further information about the Jordan River Village, e-mail murray@netvision.net.il, call the Grants in Israel at 972-9-885-1136, or leave a message for them with Lisa Grant and Billy Weitzer at 860-231-9066.
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