23 Giving Kids in Netanya a Chance The Netanya Foundation (TNF) raises money for projects that the city of Netanya is unable to fund or is only partially able to fund. We have found them to be a wonderful partner. Depending upon the project, they supervise buying and/or construction. Our first project was the renovation of a moadonit, an after-school daycare club that is a substitute “home” for 15 children, aged 6-10 years. The children who come to this club are high-risk from severely dysfunctional families and are primarily olim (immigrants to Israel) from Ethiopia and the Former Soviet Union. The children are referred to the clubs by social workers. The moadonit substitutes for the weaknesses of the children’s real homes. The children are given individual attention, help with their homework, enrichment activities, and a hot meal that is often their only meal of the day. Over the last five years we have made grants of almost $175,000 to (i) renovate and equip a room in a Community Center used for adults in the morning, young children after school, and teens at night, (ii) modify an old classroom into a specialized “Math Unit” that made an entire classroom a “Mathematics Learning Center,” to buy (iii) computers, (iv) projectors, and (v) outside games (and paid to first, grade and then, renovate the backyard) of the moadonit discussed above (vi) furnishings and equipment for a room that will be used by parents and children where the courts do not allow unsupervised visits of a parent and child, and (vii) twice matched a TNF grant to supply a hot meal to 30 underprivileged children, who spend four days a week from 12:45 – 4:00, in a “Learning Center,” (viii) an industrial kitchen in a community center serving “kids” from 4 to 94, and (ix) leveraged an $18,300 grant six-fold by agreeing to be the last dollars to make a large project for a music room (in an afternoon center for very poor Ethiopian teens) plus equipment, plus teaching and other operating expenses for 2 years (the party offering the original challenge was toward the end of its challenge period, and, but for HOT, the project would have died), (x) the purchase of furniture and equipment for a classroom for high-risk kids so they can get the special attention they need (the city agreed to fund the teachers if HOT furnished the room), (xi) a ceiling crane to move disabled children within their classroom, (xii) funded a small Hebrew tutoring class for Ethiopians who had trouble learning Hebrew making it impossible for them to assimilate into Israeli society, (xiii) buy specialized equipment for a robotics lab in a high school (see picture above) (xiv) a/c unit and furniture for a school library, and (xv) computers for a school with predominantly Ethiopian students. TNF’s current, all levered, wish-list includes: • $4,821 for kitchen appliances in a “Life Skills” classroom of a special education school • $4,959 for Kindergarten prep courses includes 10 sessions for preschoolers and 4 sessions for parents • $10,760 to refurbish 4 rooms in a Family Therapeutic Center at $2,690 per room