Ultimate Frisbee Peace Camp

I can think of no better long-term path to peace than to get youth playing together (breaking down stereotypes and forming new bonds).

My son, Natan laying out for his first High school Ultimate point

Here's a letter from my 14-year old, Natan, who has been invited by the Ultimate Peace group to be an assistant coach for a peace camp near Tel Aviv this summer. It's a big honor to be invited to help with this project, which taps into the great spirit and energy of the sport of Ultimate frisbee to build cooperation and friendly relationships between low-income young Jewish Israelis, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians. Any support you would like to contribute would be so appreciated!

Here are some quotes from last year's participants:
“I want to play Ultimate, and make friends with Israelis.”
Sami – 11 year-old Palestinian Boy
“They (Palestinian youth) are just like us.”
Brit - 14 year-old Israeli Girl

Dear Friends and Family,

I am writing to tell you about something that I’m super excited about and I hope that you will support me. I’ve been invited to Israel this summer to be a volunteer assistant coach for a group called Ultimate Peace. Ultimate Peace is a non-profit organization that uses Ultimate (Frisbee) to bring youth together to learn and play in regions where political and social tensions exist. This is so cool to me that playing a game that I love could help solve world problems.

Last year, summer 2009, was the first year they did this in Israel. They brought together youth my age from around Israel - Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians and were hosted by the Peres Center for Peace. This year they’re bringing together 120 youth to Camp UP at no charge to the kids. It’s going to be amazing, but also very expensive to run the camp and for each of us to get there.

My friend, Khalif El-Salaam, and I are traveling together and we are pooling our fundraising efforts. Khalif and I have known each for two years through our team Small Fryz. Khalif is a Black Muslim-American high school student from south Seattle, while I am as you know a WAsian (White Asian) Jewish-American from north Seattle. We are the essence of diversity! Both of us believe that this will be an intense and valuable experience where we’ll learn a lot about our own and each others cultures and ourselves.

To volunteer for this trip and contribute to the running of the camp, we need to fund raise $5000 between us. Donations of ANY amount will be GREATLY appreciated. One of our main fundraising ideas is a Run for Peace. We will be running five times around a local lake (Greenlake), which is about 15 miles total. If you would like to support us please email us at my mom's email (cdleee@gmail.com) what your pledge per mile is. After we finish the run we will send a follow-up email with how we’ve done (and a photo of us).

If you’d like to donate by credit card (which will support camp expenses, though they won't be able to apply it to our travel costs), or learn more about Ultimate in general here is their site: http://www.ultimatepeace.org/. If you donate online please tell them that your donation is via Khalif El-Salaam and Natan Lee-Engel.

Salaam, Shalom, Peace