Ride The Trail. Discover Your Path. Get Into Geerz.
Sat 25th Mar, 2017 @ 12:30 am
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You remember what it’s like being a kid. You remember the anxiety, the self-doubt, and the pressures. We need your help to ensure that the maximum ‘at-promise’* youth are benefiting from the Geerz program. Join us in making a difference is Israeli youth’s lives. Together we can make this happen!
Less Than One Week Remaining.
Since you were a kid, being a kid has only grown harder. Between the over-stimulation of addictive technology and the increased challenges of school, our communities are experiencing dramatic spikes in behavior problems, family crises, drug use, and lasting emotional trauma that comes from all of these.
The issues are only exacerbated when youth grow up in at-risk homes – where hot meals are a luxury or abuse is frequent.
Geerz teaches Israeli youth empowerment – without medication, without critique, without humiliation. We demonstrate every day that learning to mountain bike boosts a child’s self-esteem with a healthy, constructive release and the realization that he or she has the power to create a path to confidence and achievement. That is the essence of transforming at risk to at-promise and the goal of the “Get Into Geerz” ride.
None of this can happen without you.
For the first time, Geerz is organizing something BIG: A two day intense bike ride to raise money for youth hoping for the Geerz experience. Geerz Riders are raising money as they pedal their way across the exhilarating trails of Northern Israel.
By riding with us or supporting a Geerz Rider, you equip at-promise youth with critical life skills learned through mountain biking, away from their screens and out on the open trails of Israel. They combine physical activity, team-building, and problem-solving, take on challenges, and handle frustration.
They have the drive… all they need is the equipment. That’s why your donation goes directly to bikes, helmets, gloves, and hydration packs for these teens and pre-teens. Your donation will help them pay to enter the Geerz program so that even youth from low-income families have the opportunity to climb.
The result? You will give today’s youth confidence in themselves that they cherish because they’ve earned it. You will show them that with hard work and sweat, they can accomplish anything, both on and (more importantly) off the trail. They will realize that they are not alone: that there is a team of friends and mentors ready to pick them up if they fall.
And now you can double the impact of your fund-raising! From now until March 27 at 9 am Israel time — which is exactly the moment when our bikers will hit the trail — each dollar you raise for Geerz will be DOUBLED by a generous set of donors.
Thanks to generous donors like you, Geerz participants see increased documented productivity in school and overall happiness at home. Pediatricians and therapists report that Geerz gives their patients a healthy, constructive release and the gift of a healthy self-esteem.
Please join us and pave the way for youth to discover a world of confidence and achievement. You can donate to Geerz here.
For more information about the ride, please click here.
*Geerz honors its riders by referring to them as at-promise. At-promise broadens the perspective, fills in some of the details, and reminds us that all youth have natural gifts, positive qualities, and potential for goodness. The act of focusing on strengths is different than the cultural norm of zoning in on what needs “fixing.”
