October 13, 2014 - Last year SINAI Schools set out to examine the impact that inclusion has had on the students in our partner schools, those without disabilities who have grown up side by side with our students. To this end, we created a contest for the elementary and high school students of our five partner schools asking them to explore, through either art or essay, what inclusion meant to them: How the lives of students who do not have disabilities are impacted by sharing their community with students who are different from themselves.

The contest spoke directly to New York philanthropist Joe Sprung. As the founder of Bear Givers, a national nonprofit which strives not only to comfort children in need, but to empower them and to raise their self esteem. He  offered to sponsor the Grand Prize: a trip to Israel---on condition that the winner would deliver a large donation of stuffed bears to Hatzolah on this prize trip.

As one child wrote: "If in an orchestra there is only a harp, only drums, only a piano, or only a violin, it would not be an orchestra. If at my school there was no Sinai, it would not be the same. Together, we are a symphony.”