This past Motzei Shabbos, over 25 girls gathered at RYNJ for a basketball fundraiser benefiting United Hatzalah. The evening was conceived by Emmy Eizikovitz in conjunction with her upcoming bat mitzvah celebration. Last January, she visited United Hatzalah headquarters in Yerushalayim while on a family trip and experienced a behind the scenes tour of their day to day operations. Emmy, almost 11 at the time, was impressed with what she saw and everything the volunteers do in order to respond to an emergency within 90 seconds.
This visit left a lasting impression. Emmy has been playing basketball in MGBL since 2nd grade and she was inspired to combine her love of basketball with her fundraising goal by holding a clinic to benefit United Hatzalah and the life saving work they are doing every day in Israel.
Each participant who signed up for the event made a donation through her fundraising page as an entrance fee. Over the course of two months, friends and family from all over contributed to her campaign, even if they weren’t planning to attend the event. Through the generosity of her friends and the broader community, Emmy increased her fundraising target multiple times and has successfully raised over $6,000 to date, enough to supply United Hatzalah volunteers with a medical kit and a defibrillator.
Coincidentally, Eli Beer, founder and president of United Hatzalah, was at a local friend’s house a few nights before the basketball event when their daughter mentioned that she would be attending the event. Once Eli heard what it was all about, he insisted on sending a video to Emmy to thank her for her efforts. Eli thanked Emmy for raising a significant sum of money to help save so many lives and said, “This is going to be the beginning of your mitzvah life.” We echo Eli’s words that Emmy should merit “120 years of chesed.”
Emmy is a sixth grader at RYNJ and is the youngest daughter of Nina & Judah Eizikovitz who live in Bergenfield.
If you would like to contribute to Emmy’s fundraiser you can do so at https://bit.ly/emmyUH.
