- Cookout Social on Sunday April 7, 2019 from 1-4 pm at the San Dieguito park.
- Rotarians at Work on Saturday April 27, 2019. Options are still to be finalized.
As San Diego Site Director for Hands of peace (HoP), Sarah Heirendt (pronounced Hi-rent) is responsible for overseeing the annual three-week summer program that brings together 50 Israeli, Palestinian and American youth right here in Carlsbad, and other year-round projects that take place in the San Diego area. This includes community education and outreach, participant and volunteer recruitment, alumni engagement and event planning as well as coordination and execution of the many details that go into the summer program.
Sarah served as the San Diego Assistant Program Director in 2016 as well as one of the leadership training facilitators. She received her BA from Vanguard University in Cultural Anthropology and her MS from George Mason University in Conflict Resolution. She has worked for multiple non-profits specializing in community development. While studying and traveling abroad, her interest in the Middle East peace process developed firsthand when she volunteered at a refugee camp near Nablus in the West Bank.
She said that the organization was founded in Chicago since the founder lives there. Sarah brought a guest Darling Kittoe, who was visiting from their Chicago office. They have a location in San Diego and one in the middle-east. The students in the program are usually between 15-17 years old and they go through 6 phases of HoP program. They train students on cross-culture, other religions, dialogues, etc. They also have a shorter summer program that is for 3 weeks. The teams come from Israel and Palestine. They currently have about 300 "Host" families that help to provide living space and about 200+ volunteers to manage the operations during those program sessions. They have to be careful about showing the pictures of kids on their website due to security concerns for these kids and their families. Many of their student stories can be seen here.
In the end DMSB Club President Ken Barrett presented the speaker with the Joshua certificate that represents our club DMSB donating school supplies to schools in Malawi in the name of the speaker.