NCSY GIVE WEST: Day #24-25

THE LAST DAYS ON NCSY GIVE WEST 2015! We started off the morning of Day #24 with davening, breakfast, and then our last chaburas at Starbucks. Who doesn’t love that authentic NCSY “Latte & Learning”? The formal advisor-led learning may have ended, but GIVE WEST is not just about learning Torah – it’s about living it! The insights we’ve gained exploring five special middot to bring the geulah will surely stay with us forever. For our last full day of fun together on the West Coast, we headed over to Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum’s incredible Waves & Wings Waterpark. The indoor park features over 14 attractions and is styled with a fun air and space theme. The trip was a great last hurrah and bonding opportunity before parting ways. After a few hours, we rushed back to get ready and head to the JCC for GW ’15 Closing and Final Banquet. The night felt surreal. We cannot believe how quickly the summer flew by! We had a delicious catered dinner, passed out “Banquet-a-Gram” notes, took tons of pictures, and tried to hold in the tears. We watched an amazing summer recap video that really encapsulated all of the amazing experiences we had this summer touring the West Coast, doing chessed, learning Torah, participating in crazy and awesome special programming, and forming together a one-of-a-kind chain of Ahavas Yisrael and a GIVE WEST family. The banquet was also a perfect opportunity to highlight and thank every member of the program who made the summer so incredible. Our incredible advisors stood up and spoke about each and every GIVE WESTer, pointing out her special qualities and how she uniquely contributed to the best GW ’15 experience we could ever have imagined. Different members of the staff then stood up to speak about each other. This summer could never have happened without the tremendous efforts, dedication, heart and soul of our unbelievable bus driver/body guard Carlos Rios, cutest couple and logistics coordinators “Taakov”/Talia and Yaakov Borenstein, our five awesome advisors Gavriela Colton, Shayna Rabin, Dani Samet, Cayley Stark, and Sarah Lederer (who also served as our extraordinary head of programming), amazing assistant director Leora Balk, and, of course, the rock of GIVE WEST, our incredible director Leah Moskovich! Of all of the speeches, however, what stood out to us most were those that came from our girls. We heard beautiful and inspiring closing words from GIVE WESTers Leora Trencher and Riki Emanuel. Each spoke about their own experiences and takeaways from GW ’15. Next we handed out the long-awaited LOVE GIVE WEST neon pink end-of-the-summer sweatshirts, fitting right in with the strong Ahavas Yisrael theme of the summer! We headed back for packing and a late-night kumsitz and closing reflections. Before we knew it, it was time for the airport. Goodbye hugs and tear-stained cheeks… we truly had the BEST. SUMMER. EVER. Let the countdown to Reunion begin!