There’s something about Yachad that makes people keep coming back to it.
Yachad is the Orthodox Union-run organization that provides programs, services, advocacy, support, and love to people with disabilities and their families.
You would think that its work, while worthy, is unglamorous, and that its pull would be more to a volunteer’s obligation than to any inherent sense of pleasure it would provide. But if you were to think that, you’d be wrong.
Yachad means together, and that meaning runs deep. It’s about the sense of togetherness, of oneness, of unity in diversity, that pulls people in and keeps them in. They glory in it.
Yachad draws in volunteers when they are young, and the sense of community they get from it — and that’s community, mind you, not Lady Bountiful stuff; there is no condescension there, no poor them and wonderful us — lasts well past their young adulthood, into the rest of their lives. And not only does it help Yachad’s clients — its primary goal — it also helps the volunteers, and through them it changes and improves the whole community.
Read the full story here on timesofisrael
The words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.