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May's Angel Rachael Koretsky  |
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For her Bat Mitzvah charity project, Rachel Koretsky began raising money for Darfur. She set and then exceeded at goal of $10,000. The 13 year old raised nearly $14,000 to help the Sudanese. She was intially inspired by a news story she saw about Darfur while on vacation with her family in Costa Rica in 2004. It was the first time she had seen anything about it and it reminded her of the Holocaust, which she had recently studied. "I learned from Hebrew school that the Holocaust happened and how we said never again, and the world said that," Korestsky said. "And now it's happening again. It's happened in Rwanda and now it's happening in Sudan, so I think the world should come together and say this should not happen anymore in the world. Koretsky began her money-raising efforts by educating her synagogue's congregation. She wrote and distributed letters about the Darfur situation, and received donations from every congregrant. Then she held a raffle, sold 'Save Darfur" bracelets and put Sudan donation cans in the local stores. With so many things going on in the world, Koretsky has the difficult task of educating people about Darfur and getting them to understand why they must help. Basically, I just tell them what's going on, like what the situation is, what I have been doing for the last 2 years, how I started, she said. Koretsky is donating the money to the American Jewish World Services, a non-profit relief organization which will use it to rebuild destroyed homes, to import and distribute food, water and mediine to the two million Sudanese made homeless by the Darfur conflict. She says she believes that if people get involved, they can stop the genocide in Darfur. |
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