Children Help Clean Up the World in Ben Shemen Forest Photo: kkl
Over 250 thousand volunteers from 250 localities took part in this year’s International Cleanup Day, an event that KKL-JNF has orchestrated in Israel for the past thirteen years.
Over 250 thousand volunteers from 250 localities took part in this year’s International Cleanup Day, an event that KKL-JNF has orchestrated in Israel for the past thirteen years. People of all ages, religions and walks of Israeli life took part in this year’s Cleanup Day, which was held with the support of KKL-JNF’s Friends in the USA. The main event, which took place in Ben Shemen Forest, opened with a grand cleanup campaign carried out with the help of some 350 youngsters from primary schools in the city of Modiin. Other major cleanup events were held in Nesher Park in the north and in Lahav Forest and Sderot in southern Israel.
“Litter is not a fate imposed upon us by the decree of a higher power,” KKL-JNF World Chairman Efi Stenzler informed schoolchildren at the ceremony held in Ben Shemen Forest. “Today is the day when we raise our awareness of the need to keep the environment clean. By respecting the environment we also show our respect for other people, and we all want our country to be clean and beautiful.”
The World Chairman’s words appeared to have the desired effect, and hundreds of children deployed themselves in every nook and cranny as they picked up litter and collected it in large garbage bags, leaving swathes of beautifully clean ground behind them.
“We’ve come to clean up the forest, so that it’ll be fun to walk around here,” explained eleven-year-old Alma Kalifa. Her classmate Uri Shohat was excited to be taking part in a project shared by other children all over the world. “It’s a really special feeling to know that children in so many different places are also setting out to clean up their environment, each in his own country,” he said.
Source: Jpost.com
