Programs
FIDF maintains and constructs sports, cultural, recreational, and other such facilities across Israel, from Qiryat Shemona in the Upper Galilee down to the far reaches of the Negev near Eilat. Seventeen of these projects have been completed while others are in the planning or construction phase. In addition to these centers, FIDF supports mobile units that serve similar functions for troops unable to use a permanent one. In another program known as "Spirit", FIDF supports weekly R&R for IDF soldiers at AWIS recreation facilities.
Beyond these centers, FIDF runs several financial support programs. "IMPACT!" is a program that provides 4-year college, university, or vocational scholarships to combat soldiers coming from poor socioeconomic backgrounds. In its first 2 years of existence, 550 soldiers received scholarships. Another program called "Dignity" provides grants and vouchers to soldiers in financial need to pay bills or purchase food.
Between 14,000-20,000 IDF troops need hospital care each year for injuries sustained during their service. FIDF supports a "Wounded Soldiers Program", donating personal amenities as well as facilitating contact with family members.
While helping current and former soldiers, FIDF also operates summer camps in Israel and the United States for the surviving orphans and widows of IDF personnel killed in the line of duty.
Members of FIDF can participate in an "FIDF Solidarity Mission" -- a group trip to Israel where participants interact with IDF personnel and visit Israeli attractions and places of interest. Some of these missions are geared toward "young leadership" members. Donors of $10,000 can sign up to participate in a one-week boot camp mission which includes army training as well as touring.
Read more about this topic: Friends Of The Israel Defense Forces
Famous quotes containing the word programs:
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“Will TV kill the theater? If the programs I have seen, save for “Kukla, Fran and Ollie,” the ball games and the fights, are any criterion, the theater need not wake up in a cold sweat.”
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)