What Success Really Looks Like

After 10 years of Kol HaNearim and struggling every summer like the chart on the left depicts, Pre-Covid, KH started to feel like the chart on the left. KH was a well-known program, we had a surplus of applicants, all the children’s homes in Israel were calling us for programming, the summers were amazing, we had all of our suppliers in order, and it finally started to feel “easy.” (I say that lightly

because no matter what, running programming for 2,000+ people is never easy).

But, the last two years has totally looked like the chart on the right (except way more volatile).

What makes the right half amazing to me is that when that arrow inflected downward, or even

backwards, you had NO IDEA that it will ever inflect up again. The success at the end is not guaranteed

to happen. Only, in the end do you know it worked out. But, in that setback moment you have no way of

knowing. All you know is that you don’t know.

And, when you are at that setback moment you can do 2 things – give up or innovate.

This past year was filled with extraordinary ups and downs. Every time, we would take 5 steps forward, just days later we would be rocketed 50 steps backward.

When we had to cancel our normal KH 2021 programming back in March, my brain would jump to worst case scenarios for the future of KH. It was not fun and the days were dark. But, what makes the KH team so amazing is that just a day after we cancelled KH 2021 for our high school volunteers and all of our children homes in Israel - what pulled KH through to make this summer great was our amazing KH team said (demanded) – “WE HAVE TO FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. WE CAN’T DO NOTHING. LET'S GET TO WORK.”

That is what we did. We figured it out. We recruited a different age demographic (18+ year olds), we

bumped up our summer programming by 3 weeks to match up with the one home that would let in

volunteers, we fundraised to help pay for the summer programming across Israel, we created

programming across all the homes we work with, and that is just the tip of the iceberg of all the changes we had to make. But, we did it and it was simply amazing.

This past summer, KH 2021, took so much hard work, so much perseverance, so much passion, energy, and teamwork, that I want to extend a BIG BIG BIG THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE AMAZING KH STAFF, VOLUNTEERS, PARTNERS, DONORS, ACHUZAT SARAH, SHEIRUT LEUMI, ALUMNUS AND MOST OF ALL OUR CHILDREN.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

We can’t wait to get back to Israel next year. The whole KH team is counting down the days to KH 2022!

KH 2022 is going to be the biggest, best, and most successful year yet!!

(It would certainly be nice though if the success in 2022 looks more like the left side of the image

above….…..I know it won’t and we certainly love that we don’t know.) Please reach out to get involved in KH 2022!!!! WE NEED YOUR HELP! So much to do to make all of our

2,000+ children have the best summers yet.

Thank you for your continued support.

Michael Reidler

Founder, CEO of Kol HaNearim

Quote from Chagit, a director at Achuzat Sara

“It is a group of exceptional young people that we have been so lucky to welcome this year earlier than usual at Achuzat Sara! Kol Hanearim are here!- all our boys and girls are whispering to each other 24 hours a day in excitement. Thank you very much KH and dear Michael for making this possible and seeing to it that our children 's Corona year is going to have a very happy ending which will undoubtedly compensate them for all the hardship and distress of the past 10 months"