Hasbara Fellowships #HasHeart

By: Fay Goldstein, Managing Director

Over the past few days and throughout the month of February, in honor of Valentine’s Day and February’s American Heart Month, Hasbara Fellowships and Save A Child’s Heart Young Leadership have partnered to bring a Valentine’s Day themed campaign to university campuses across North America. Save A Child’s Heart Young Leadership is managed by Marissa Rosenfeld, who actually heard about and visited Save A Child’s Heart for her first time ever when she was a student on Hasbara Fellowships! She and I were on the same Hasbara student delegation in the summer of 2011!

SACH (in short) is an Israeli humanitarian organization that provides lifesaving cardiac surgery for children from developing countries and also trains doctors from around the world to bring these life-saving skills back to their home countries. Over 90 university campuses around the US and Canada will be hosting fundraising and awareness campaigns for Save A Child’s Heart over the next few weeks.

During the month of February, over 200 university students, many of whom are Hasbara Fellows and visited the Save A Child’s Heart children’s home in Israel, hope to collectively fundraise the $15,000 necessary to save the life of one child. They are hosting on-campus bake sales, auctions, karaoke benefits, and more. The campuses register as a Hasbara Fellowships SACH team on a fundraising platform – give.classy.org/hasbara – and ‘compete’ to see who can raise the largest percentage of the $15,000 goal.

This initiative is not only about fundraising the money however, it is also largely about the positive emotions that this initiative and Israeli organization brings to campus. Often, we hear a negative campus narrative, where the entire conversation about Israel centers around war, conflict, and politics – this is a chance for students and communities to speak about Israel in different terms – in a proactive and positive way.

Some of the 90+ campuses participating are:

American University                McGill University                           University of Georgia    

Baruch College                       Miami University of Ohio               University of Illinois

Boston University                    Michigan State University              University of Massachusetts

Brandeis University                  Northeastern University                University of Miami

Brooklyn College                     Northwestern University                University of Minnesota

Brown University                      Ohio State University                    University of New Hampshire

Cal State Long Beach               Penn State                                     University of Oregon

Carleton University                  Queens University                          University of Pennsylvania

Colorado State                         Rutgers University                         University of Pittsburgh

Concordia University                San Diego State University             University of South Florida

Cornell University                     Tufts University                             University of Texas

Florida Atlantic University         Tulane University                          University of Toronto

Florida State University             University of British Columbia        University of Vermont

George Mason University          University of Calgary                     University of Virginia

George Washington University  University of California, Davis        Vanderbilt University

Harvard                                    University of California, Irvine        Wayne State University

Hunter College                         UC, Los Angeles                             Yale University

Indiana University                     UC, Santa Barbara                          York University

Kent State University                 UC, Santa Cruz

The students all received a ‘pop-up campaign’ kit which included printed visuals, a social media kittablecloth, tabling swag, and a resource guide to learn more.

We are so impressed that in honor of this month of hearts and valentines, these students are doing all they can to spread the love! Keep an eye out on our Facebook page and specifically THIS album to see photos of the campaign in action! You can also search the hashtag #HasHeart to see all of the campus activity!

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