On Volunteering, Improved

I decided sometime last month that if I'm going to be spending a significant portion of this year volunteering, I want to be doing something valuable to both the community and to myself. Enter Ultimate Peace.

Ultimate Peace is an organization that's goal is to teach young Israelis to play ultimate, and through the spirit of the game, to promote peace. The organization has numerous "camps" set up throughout Israel, mostly in Israeli-Arab towns, but also in some Jewish towns and Palestinian towns in the West Bank. The organization is all-volunteer, with mentor-coaches going to every camp each week to host an organized practice—stretches, drills, and a scrimmage. Ultimate Peace splits the coaches into three teams consisting of two committed volunteers who go every week and a few occasional volunteers. Each team goes to multiple camps every Friday to hold practices.

Arab and Jewish kids shaking hands before the "disc-in"

 My coaching team is led by Dan, who is one of the foremost ultimate players in Israel. He coaches the Israeli National Team, runs an Ultimate league, and plays actively on the best Israeli club team. Needles to say, he's dirty. Anyway, this Friday, Dan, Abe (another committed volunteer), and I went up north to two Arab towns: Tuba-Zangaria and Daburia. We left Tel Aviv at 8 and got to Tuba at 10. The sessions take place, for the rainy season, in local gymnasiums. The kids in Tuba were great. They have pretty developed throwing skills and are learning the fundamentals of the game (which I never took the time to learn). I helped with some of the drills, feeding the kids throws and collecting discs. At the end of the practice, we scrimmaged and I was man-on-man with Dan, who ran circles around me without breaking a sweat. Fun.

Scrimmage with the kids in Tuba-Zangaria

We left Tuba at 11:30 and got to Daburia at 12:30. The kids at Daburia are a bit more advanced and energetic, so we focused on more complex concepts, like faking and forcing. After the session, we got shwarma and headed back to Tel Aviv, stopping at the beach on the way back to watch the storm-fueled waves devour the beach. And this will be every week. Yeee.

Dan showing the kids the business in Daburia

It was really incredible to work with Arab kids in such a fun environment…I'm starting to see a different side of things. And I'm going to get much better at ultimate through coaching, which is a fantastic benefit.

Ultimate Peace is one day a week for eight hours, leaving me with a good chunk of empty volunteer time. For two days a week, I'm essentially apprenticing at a woodshop where they host classes on woodworking, as well as making furniture. For the last couple days, I've been organizing wood to size and chopping them down with power tools. Isn't that great? I get to work with power tools for a volunteer job. The best part of the job is that I'm allowed to make whatever I want for myself using their wood. Today, I had the place to myself for a while, so I made a paper towel dispenser. Simple, but a great addition to our apartment. The resources at the woodshop make the art studio I did sculpture work in look pathetic. They have so many tools and so many different types of wood. I'm going to make it a point to make something small at the end of each day there…gifts for friends, things for the apartment, or whatever.

Chilling at the woodshop

So that's my volunteering schedule. I'm so thankful to be working in environments where I can actually take something out of it.

Something for Windy - Bonobo