The knitting circle established 2 ladies of Rishon Lezion's ESRA group Lorna Toube and Shirley Frenkel, approached the Municipalitiy to ask how to reach children who would benefit from these delightful sweaters. They were directed to the Moadoniot within Rishon that the Municipality runs and so the Knitting/Chanukah programme began.

This week I joined three wonderful ladies, Janet Kiesari, Lorna Toube and Lucille Reef who invited me to accompany them to Chanukah parties for some of these children. The ladies from the knitting group had hand knitted approximately 140 sweaters in different colours, styles and sizes.

The excitement of these children was palpable. These children, with their bright and shining faces, come from deprived and abusive homes and never have the opportunity of being shown kindness and generosity such as ESRA gives on a regular basis to wherever needed.

The second Moadonit we visited was for older children who were so appreciative of what was being done for them. Each one stood up, introduced themselves, stated which class they were in and why they enjoyed coming to the centre. The children are provided with a cooked meal each day, play with educational toys and are supervised by loving volunteers whilst the they do their homework. They are cared for throughout the evening, five days a week, until they are collected to go back home.

The teacher in charge of the Moadonit is devoted and committed to helping these children and each child benefits from this environment enormously. The children ask for nothing other than love and kindness, commodities, that are in short supply at home, but with the help and generosity of the wonderful ladies who belong to ESRA, they are given these in abundance. The children were so excited when they were given sweets and doughnuts, giving them a party like atmosphere. The sweets and doughnuts had been donated by various companies who were only too delighted to share in the mitzvah of helping these children.

Although I only participated in three of these parties, there were about nine other parties held in the weeks running up to Chanukah giving pleasure to at least 140 children.

We all left these centres feeling very humbled by the cheerfulness and joy these children felt and showed us; strangers who had taken the time to give them something new for themselves without asking anything in return.