To kickstart the camp we are running, we heard from all-star JOLTER- Shira Schwartz describing her incredible experience with day 1 of Machane Hachi Achi!
Yesterday was a huge highlight of our trip! We started the day with setting up for the campers to arrive. We blew up balloons, made posters, got dressed up and blasted music. When the campers came, we gathered outside in a human bridge for them to run through. After everyone was off the bus, we danced with the campers outside before taking them inside for a carnival with pop corn, cotton candy and slushies. We then learned some simcha Layeled cheers with our campers. Afterwords, we loaded the busses for our first tiyul with the campers. Each JOLT camper sat with a simcha Layeled camper on the bus. When we got to the water hike, everyone immediately started throwing water at each other and the hike quickly turned in to a massive water fight. The hike was my favorite part of the whole day because it was a really good way to get around and meet all the campers in a fun way…while everyone threw water at each other :). When we got back to Hispin, we had dinner, where each JOLT kid once again sat with a simcha Layeled kid, so that everyone can get to know each other even better. We had a drum circle last night with blasting music and everyone was singing, dancing and playing the drums. Everyone got really into it which made the whole activity so much better!! It was overall a really great day where we all really got to bond. This was only day 1, but I can’t wait for the rest of the week to come!