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April 9, 2004/Nisan 18 5764, Vol. 56, No. 29
Mitzvah Corps receives $10,000 grant
BETH OLSON
Staff Writer
Mitzvah Corps has been granted $10,000 by the Maricopa County Attorney's office for the Camp SWIFT program.
Camp SWIFT, a camp for underprivileged children in the Valley, ages 9-11, is held in two sessions each summer at Camp Charles Pearlstein in Prescott.
The grant comes from RICO forfeiture funds, which are typically used for law enforcement, but are also granted to intervention and prevention programs that "reduce the incidence of gang involvement and substance abuse in our community," according to a letter sent by Richard Romley, Maricopa County attorney.
The grant will help with operating costs of the camp, which totaled $27,000 last year, according to Al Rashkow, executive director of Mitzvah Corps. This will allow money generated by fund raising to be used for other Mitzvah Corps programs for disadvantaged youth, including tutoring, field trips and Camp CHUCK (Charles Herring Uplifting Camp for Kids) - a new day camp that will open this summer.
"We're going to go younger for the day camp, so at the end of next year, those very same kids can go to Camp SWIFT and in the interim will be able to go to the museums and the carnival and the sporting events and really hang out with the tutors to try to make a greater impact on their life," says Rabbi B. Charles Herring of Temple Kol Ami.
The Mitzvah Corps pro-grams are run completely by volunteers, mostly from NFTY (North American Federation of Temple Youth) Southwest, the youth group of the Reform movement. Volunteers come back year after year, from college through young adult-hood and beyond, said Rash-kow.
"These kids say it's a life-changing experience. I hear this over and over and over again," he said. "I think the most important thing is they come to realize that because of an accident of birth, they live in North Scottsdale and not in South Phoenix. It's nothing they did to warrant that, and I think it starts them on a path of giving back to the com-munity."
Rashkow said most of the participants in Camp SWIFT have never been outside the city of Phoenix.
Camp SWIFT, which draws 300 campers per summer, has been in operation for 25 years, with one exception - in 2002 camp was canceled because of the closure of the Prescott National Forest due to wild fires.
In addition to Camp SWIFT, the teen volunteers give their time to tutoring students at Palomino Elementary School each week. They also visit Crockett Elementary School once a month.
For information or to make donations, call Rashkow at Temple Kol Ami, 480-951-9660.
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