Spotlight on Karly & Stefanie Gordon

A milestone occasion encourages these twin sisters to support hospital residents overseas.

Hebrew school was just something we sisters did, never really understanding the larger picture. A few months ago, however, the director of our Hebrew school at Knesseth Israel Synagogue in Bound Brook, NJ showed us a video that inspired us and changed our lives forever. The about 15-minute film featured Alyn Hospital, a relatively small hospital in Israel that serves as a rehabilitation center for physically challenged and disabled children, adolescents and young adults. The images in the film immediately touched our hearts— they made us realize how much we have and how much we want to give to others who are less fortunate.

In preparing for our bat mitzvah, we especially recognize that now is the time to begin paving a path that helps others. After seeing the DVD on Alyn, we checked out the Hospital’s Web site and learned about the Mitzvah of Love program, designed just for teens like us. The program encouraged us to personally connect with Alyn and be creative in executing a charitable project. We knew immediately that the project was something we wanted to be involved with for the long haul!

We are twins— fraternal, as you can see from our picture. But we generally have the same interests, mainly that we LOVE to dance. We have danced since we were knee-high. We practice four days a week and compete on the weekends. We wanted to incorporate our passion for dance in a hospital fundraiser, allowing us to have fun with our friends while educating others about Alyn and it’s patients. The perfect solution to achieve all of our goals was to hold a dance-a-thon. Though the event was inexpensive to organize, we were able to entice a lot of people to participate, and that increased the fun and the amount of money we were able to raise.

Our central goal was to share with our classmates what we learned about children living with disabilities. We wanted to encourage our classmates to understand the pain and daily struggles people with special needs have to endure just to live. We wanted our classmates to realize how we can all do small things to improve other people’s lives. We also wanted our friends to be aware of how fortunate they are, and to know that they can help children around the world to live better and more fulfilled lives.

To raise awareness, we helped our Temple create and send out flyers advertising the event. As a separate project, we made friendship bracelets and cards that we sent to the New York offices of the American Friends of ALYN HOSPITAL. The charitable organization then sent the bracelets and cards to the children at the hospital, showing them that they have friends supporting them around the world.

On the day of the dance-a-thon in November 2006, we were so excited we could hardly stand it. We ensured that all the donations were accounted for, the room was set up and the participants were properly admitted. We also emceed the event. The dance-a-thon lasted for about three hours, with about 80 kids and grownups attending. The best part about the dance-a-thon: the delight the attendees experienced, including when they found out how much money we all raised— over $3,000. As we write this, we are still raising money by handing out more flyers and contacting others who can possibly donate to support the American Friends of ALYN. We have raised over $1,000 by doing this alone.

“I have never seen the kids so excited about raising money for a good cause before,” says Susan Saltzman, Knesseth Israel Hebrew School director.

The director also said that we handled our job of putting the fundraiser together with such attention to detail and kindness that no matter what hurdles we faced in the process, we were going to help make the lives of the Alyn patients better.

Peers who attended the dance-a-thon expressed similar sentiments. “I had so much fun at the dance-a-thon,” said our friend Jennifer Gordon. “You were so inspiring. When I have my Bat Mitzvah, I am going to put together my own Mitzvah of Love project to help the children at Alyn Hospital.”

The project changed our view of the world in many ways. The most striking way is that when we now see or hear of anyone whom needs help, we are the first to offer assistance. This experience also made us happier people overall, as it taught us how lucky we are and that we are we are never too busy to give to others— especially children who face such enormous daily challenges.

Our future plans consist of ongoing fundraising efforts with American Friends of ALYN HOSPITAL. We plan to visit the hospital and ailing children in Israel. We also want to create a dog therapy program and get involved with the homeless bus. The homeless bus is a vehicle that finds homeless people in New York and provides them with shelter, food and clothes. Along with our charitable efforts, we both want to be professional dancers for a dance company; but most importantly, we want to live inspired lives and inspire our friends and family members to do the same.

For more information about American friends of ALYN HOSPITAL,
call (877)LOVE-ALYN or visit www.alynus.org.