Wendy joined us almost a year ago, when she arrived from Colorado. She found her own housing on Kibbutz Nir Am. The kibbutz is just on the other side of the highway; it is about a twenty-five minute walk to our warehouse in downtown Sderot. We used to call it “the six second line” because that was the amount of time she had to find cover when “Tseva Adom” sounded.

There are few bomb shelters to protect pedestrians walking that road to town from the Kassam rockets and mortars fired from Gaza. Yet neither the distance nor the danger stopped Wendy from making that trip into town to help us out when ever we needed her help.

She made that trip more than one hundred and fifty times; she helped pack over 7500 bags of food, and she helped deliver some 1300 bags of food to those who cannot make it to our warehouse, the Moxson, on Thursdays to pick up their food.

Using her accounting background and her knowledge of Excel, Wendy created inventory and ordering programs for our food, and she also set up a spreadsheet to track the people we give food to each week. She even took the time to teach us how to make changes to the programs and left us with detailed instructions, as well as her e-mail address, just in case we need more of her highly professional help.

I can’t tell you how many pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, and other vegetables she cut for lunches on Thursdays at the moxson or on Tuesdays to feed the people brunch at Enosh. What I can tell you is I am real sorry that the knives she had to cut them up with were really bad… I found that out on Thursday as I cut the veggies up myself! Sorry Wendy!

Needless to say, it was hard to see Wendy go back to the states, and it was one trip to the airport we didn’t want to make. She was always up to whatever challenge the day brought, and she worked tirelessly. When she was not working in the Moxson packing food or delivering, she volunteered her time two days a week at a local school teaching English to collage-bound students.

She is and will be missed by her family her, and we all hope that one day she will be able to come back to Sderot.

Thank you, Wendy, for all your help, love and support.