b'Teaching Leadership to Teens in AshkelonIn the Fall 2008 edition of the HOT News we titled a vignette Ashkelon - Another Sderot? We wrote this after a summer of Hamas missiles being fired at a town with hotels, a beautiful beach, and a port known as the Israeli Riviera. We renovated two bomb shelters, one of which wastohouseatrainingandleadershipcenter(TLC)tobeusedtoempoweranddevelop young leaders who were to lead youth group branches located all over the city. It was to be a hub to make an important contribution to empowering teens and developing leadership skills. Throughtheyears,wehavefundedseveralyouth-at-risk projectsinAshkelon(thecityofAshkelonfoundusa partnerformanyofthem),andwhenHamasstarted launching missiles at Ashkelon in the summer of 2014, we immediately called Sigal (our contact in the city) to see how HOT could help. Over the following 7 weeks we spoke to each other as many as 3 times a day and often emailed more than 10 times a day. During the War, the food HOT bought tofeedtheupto4,000childrenaday,andthetoysand supplies we bought to entertain the very young children, were taken to the public shelters by the teens, who disbursed them from the TLC shelter.The teens acted as surrogate parents playingwiththeyoungchildrenanddoingwhatevertheycoulddotokeepthemfrom focusing on the sirens and explosions. See page 57 to see what else HOT did during the war.In October 2014 there was another chapter in this incredible story. HOT visited the TLC after the war and met eight of the teens. We asked them werent you afraid of the sirens and missiles.Andtheyanswered:YES-duringthefirstdaytheywereBUTstartingonthe second day they didnt have time to be scared because it was their job to make sure the younger kids were calm. It took a moment to process these words coming from a 17-year-old, speaking for a group of 14 to 17-year-olds, and when we processed these words, we told them that the people who calledthemtheFUTUREofIsraelwereWRONG because they were the PRESENT of Israel. It may have beentheirolderbrothersandsistersandinsomecases fathers or mothers that fought in Gaza, or were stationed on the border, but these teens fought the war too. Our thanks totheseyoungmenandwomenandtoalltheIsraeli mothers like Sigal who went to sleep every night worrying about their 18-year-old son or daughter on the Gaza border. Since 2014, Hamas has dug more tunnels and rearmed itself with new missiles, and the residents of southern Israel go to sleep each night not knowing what the next day will bring. In Ashkelon, HOT has primarily focused in helping at-risk teens.This year, the city of Ashkelon is asking for: $5,540 remaining cost for a camp program for 350 at-risk teens $8,033 remaining cost for a work program for 120 at-risk teens $13,767torenovateanundergroundbombsheltertoteachself-respectand leadership qualities to at-risk teens. The total cost is $27,618 but Ashkelon has raised $13,851 and needs only $13,767 to be able to complete the renovation. 29'