An Open Letter To Yonatans Camp Counselors

    By now many of you have probably seen the myriad of photos and videos that I have been posting of Yonatan at camp. You are having the opportunity to share in our joy and to hopefully view the amazing world of HASC through his eyes. Sunday is Visiting Day and we are so excited to spend the day at camp and experience it first hand with him. It is the day we wait for all summer and honestly probably most of the year. Pics to follow....

     I was asked to write a letter for the HASC staff newsletter to give them a glimpse of what HASC means to us as parents and I wanted to share it here. This letter truly sums up how we feel as Yonatans parents every summer.

I am sure by now you have all met Yonatan, or YoYo as he is known to most everyone. You have probably even fallen in love with him already because, man does he know how to wrap almost any human being around his finger. He just gets you with that smile of his, and you just melt. And somehow, five minutes later, when you are covered completely in M&M drool you are wondering to yourself, how did I fall for that again?. Right, you know exactly what I am talking about. I know you do.

As you can imagine, being YoYo's parent isn't all sunshine, smiles and M&M drool. It is a big challenge every single day. As my husband always says, our biggest challenge is also our greatest bracha. Truer words have never been spoken. While Yo can be a huge ball of love he is also a very frustrated child. Much of his life consists of hearing the word no and being restricted from the things he loves to do, you know, like delivering the mail and gardening, because sometimes there just isn't time to deliver mail, to the entire city of Los Angeles, exactly when he wants to.

As his parent, we struggle considerably with finding and delivering on the things that really truly make him happy. We try, we give it our all, but it really just isn't easy. That is, it wasn't, until we found HASC. I tell everyone that the best part of HASC is that we really feel each summer like we are delivering him to the happiest part of his year. That sending him to HASC is the best thing that we have ever done for him as his parents. We truly feel that way with every fiber of our beings. The reason that is true is simple, it is because we are sending him to people like you. To counselors and staff who love him and just want to make him happy. We have tremendous hakarat hatov to you each and every day. Any time we meet anyone who was a counselor at HASC, my husband says, their stock rises immediately. More than that, we stand in awe of you because we would never have been HASC counselors, and we are honest enough to say that. We do this job every day because G-d gave it to us but each and everyone of you has chosen to and that sets you apart. You should go forward every day knowing that you are changing the lives of kids like Yo and their families.