So how do volunteers spend their day off…? Volunteering of course. I remember when I had my cabinet shop and on days off where would you find me… in the shop building something. I am finding volunteers are the same way. This week we had opportunity to help out at the Joshua Funds warehouse . We packed the car with four of us and left Sderot by seven thirty in the morning.

We spent the day “building pallets” of food for the “Store Fronts” that TJF supports, Hope For Sderot being one of eight presently being blessed with food by them. We offered to give a hand as they are getting the warehouse operation off the ground and are short handed presently.

Eti, Epheem, Wendy and I spent the day filling the orders from the different store fronts. Epheem, who walks with a limp and is in constant pain from shrapnel from a Kassam that ripped through his leg almost five years ago is a forklift operator and when not moving cartons of food was moving supplies and packed pallets.

Eti who works as a janitor at one of the local schools and cleans houses to supplement her income spent the day moving cases of canned goods. Her school is closed this week and next due to Passover and she has been off from work. This is how she spent her time off. Eti is a single mother and even though her two children are in their late teens, early twenties, she was still in contact with them through out the day as Kassams continued to fall in Sderot.

Wendy is from Colorado has been living in Sderot for the past six months. She too takes her free time to help as well. She has left a good job, a comfortable home, a safe home to come live on what I call the “six second line” Wendy lives on Kibbutz Nir Am, which is closer to the Gaza border… as the Kassam flies and the mortar fall, nine seconds closer. She has only six seconds to find cover. Yet she has come to help, support and love the people of Sderot. When I asked her if she wanted to spend the day in Bet Shemesh packing pallet she asked me “What time do I need to be ready?

The only repercussions I had from the day in Bet Shamash was the rest of our volunteers asked how come they couldn’t come. I guess either we need a bigger car or we will just have to take turns.