Shownotes
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Tzivia: Hi, my name is Tzivia Cohen. I'm the founder of 14Minds, a marketing agency that specializes in developing strategic campaigns to help nonprofit organizations connect with their audience. I've had the privilege of meeting some inspirational nonprofit leaders and doers who have devoted an untold number of hours to achieving their mission.
Many of these incredible individuals have shared a similar frustration with me along these [00:00:30] lines. No one knows what we really do. Not even our own volunteers. It's so hard to explain all of our different services. People think our organization is a lot smaller than it is. [00:00:40] That's why I created this podcast to give non-for-profits a platform to share their mission with the world.
I hope these conversations inspire you as much as they inspire me.
[00:00:50] Okay. Hi everyone. Today I am really excited to have with us Yitty Fisch, the founder and director of Kochavim. Yitty, thank you so much for being here.
Yitty: Thanks for having me. I am the director of a nonprofit [00:01:10] organization called Kochavim. We are based in Brooklyn as our first location, and we are committed to helping [00:01:20] kids shine despite serious illnesses.
And our anchor program and our most important program is our school [00:01:30] for immunocompromised children, which enables children who otherwise would be at home and unable to attend regular school because of their complex medical needs [00:01:40] to get a good education, enables them to go to school, to preschool, just like anyone else. And it makes sure that beyond just doctors’ [00:01:50] appointments, hospitals and home, they have an additional safe place that they can go to school and get their education.
Tzivia: Wow. Amazing. So with which type of [00:02:00] illnesses?
Yitty: So any kind of illness in which there is a child that has … usually it's immunocompromised, so that would be if a child has a heart transplant and they're [00:02:10] on certain drugs that prevent them from being exposed to germs or children on active chemotherapy, kidney transplants. And there's a whole host of diseases that will compromise the child's immunity and we know prevent them from going to school with 30 kids where they can pick up any germs and become too sick to be able to function. You know in today's times, we could probably understand the concept of germs, but we've been in existence already for eight years. And I think it becomes a lot easier to explain to people what it means to be in a sterile environment because of unfortunately the last year and [00:02:50] Corona. But our children and the children we service were out of school even before anybody knew what Corona was, and we were taking safety measures and precautions to make sure that they were safe.
[00:03:00] And if you were to visit our class, the first thing we would do is send you straight to the sink to wash your hands. And then at different intervals during the day, the children wash [00:03:10] up, wash their hands, and everybody has their own box and their own supplies.
Tzivia: Way before it was commonplace…
Yitty: Yes, exactly. And we did shut down for [00:03:20] Covid obviously because our children were at higher risk, but some of the protocols and procedures were already in place before the rest of the world caught on.
We do have an air purifying [00:03:30] system that purifies the air, and there are children who literally can be on chemo in the morning and come to our school in the afternoon. Or, you know, we even had children like [00:03:40] wheeled in in their carriages sleepy from post-radiation. And we are so lucky to have them be part of a regular school setting.
It's obviously a small class. [00:03:50] If a child isn't feeling well and has a runny nose, the mothers know not to send them. Teachers have to be feeling fine. And all this is I think an outgrowth of a volunteer experience...