By Sydney Shaiman, Sasha Kagan, Dassi Kalmanofsky, and Ayelet Meridy

As seniors at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School in Manhattan, we have spent the past four weeks interning at American Friends of Rabin Medical Center (AFRMC). During our time at AFRMC we have had the opportunity to learn about the non-profit world and the great work that AFRMC does for the Rabin Medical Center. American Friends of Rabin Medical Center supports innovative medical treatment and healthcare at Israel’s Rabin Medical Center for one million patients annually. The Medical center is located in Petah Tikvah and is a premiere medical center in Israel.

Our main focus during our internship has been to promote the Schlep, AFRMC’s annual 5k walk/run for breast and ovarian cancer. Our day to day responsibilities include community outreach; going door to door promoting the Schlep at local businesses and distributing brochures and posters. We have played an integral role in promoting the Schlep over social media; we created the Schlep Facebook page and continually update it in addition to AFRMC’s Twitter and Instagram accounts.

Interning at AFRMC has allowed each of us to work in different departments and learn various skills. Sydney Shaiman has written follow-up articles summarizing AFRMC events, Sasha Kagan has created promotional vides for the organization, and Ayelet Meridy and Dassi Kalmanofsky have accomplished a lot of outreach through calling and emailing past Schleppers and potential sponsors and participants, ensuring that local businesses and synagogues help get the word out about the Schlep.

We have also had amazing opportunities because of this internship. We attended two events hosted by AFRMC, the Broadway Luncheon for Acute Myeloid Leukemia at the Russian Tea Room and the annual Quaker Ridge Golf Outing for prostate cancer. At the Broadway Luncheon we greeted the guests and helped ensure that the event ran smoothly. We are thankful that we were able to see the performance of Dr. Zhivago and meet the producer, Anita Waxman, and the composer, Lucy Simon, as well as various members of the cast. At the Golf Outing, we handed out gifts to the guests, helped the photographer, and spent the beautiful day judging the hole in one competition.

Over the past four weeks we have been privileged to meet and speak with a few Rabin Medical Fellows who have been studying in the U.S with the help of AFRMC. We learned about their incredible work at Rabin Medical Center and their new experiences in America. It was great to see that they are the result of all that AFRMC has accomplished.

In our own ways we have all contributed greatly to this organization over the past month. We are very proud of the work we’ve done because we can see the difference it has made for the cause.