Finn says it was those words, from a teenager thousands of miles away, that changed her life \u2013 and the many others she\u2019s since touched. \u201cWhen reports started coming in that the IDF needed supplies, my feeling was that I was going to send over as much equipment as I could, in the hopes it would trickle down to wherever my shinshin was serving,\u201d she reflects. Connecting with fellow community member Sara Jacobs (see Women of Valor<\/a>) who had spent the last year starting a nonprofit organization (Maman<\/a>), Finn told Jacobs her passion was to help the IDF. \u201cSara was involved with helping displaced kibbutzim members, widows and orphans, and she couldn\u2019t do everything,\u201d Finn recalls. \u201cSo, my focus became 100 percent on procuring what the IDF needed to fight this war.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Once the call went out for donations, Finn was stunned by the community response. \u201cThe Amazon boxes filled my entire backyard and kept going out to the street,\u201d she smiles. \u201cI had never done anything like this before. So, becoming a supply chain manager overnight was\u2026crazy! Then one of my neighbors came down the street and said: \u2018You can\u2019t just put all this stuff on a plane. You need to create a manifest by weight, cost, item, etc. with a Google sheet or it will never get through!\u201d The sheer mass of boxes meant we needed volunteers, many of whom were already unpacking and sorting, to make a recycling trip every day. We were drowning in cardboard.\u201d\n<\/p>\n That first delivery was through a non-profit partner in Israel. But then Finn started getting requests directly from soldiers, so she opted to have donated items travel with passengers on commercial flights. \u201cBy that time, I was hosting another shinshin,\u201d she states. \u201cHis family in Israel knew someone who wanted to help.\u201d This \u201cIsraeli assistant\u201d created a system where volunteers would meet the El Al flight in Tel Aviv and deliver the donations to the different units. \u201cOne shipment would be for the orthodox, another for Golani, another for the Caracal,\u201d Finn notes. \u201cHe would tell us what was needed, and where, and then when people called wanting to donate, we could have them choose a specific group of soldiers to help. It became very personalized.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Finn recalls going to meet Israel-bound travelers at LAX with 12 bags in hand, hoping the paperwork would not overwhelm customs. \u201cAt first you could only donate to the IDF, and then, later, you could only donate to a local town or settlement that was responsible for security in their particular area,\u201d she describes. \u201cGush Etzion was an example of a town we helped a lot. But the paperwork got so complicated that, to avoid planes and customs, we just started buying all the supplies in Israel, which also helped the Israeli economy.\u201d\n<\/p>\n The next evolution was to start organizing donor trips to Israel (with Tarzana, CA-based Rabbi Yanky Khan). \u201cWe\u2019d bring people over from L.A. to spend money on supplies for soldiers, for impacted communities, for the border troops in the north and in Gaza,\u201d Finn recalls proudly. \u201cWe did four of those and then reversed it, bringing impacted people from Israel over to the U.S.\u201d \u00a0That first U.S. trip was for residents from Moshav Shuva \u2013 on the Gaza envelope \u2013 which had experienced trauma from continuous rocket fire. \u201cI remember one resident telling me that it would be great if we could do the same trip for injured soldiers,\u201d Finn adds. \u201cIt seemed far-fetched at the time. But it lit a spark. So, I thought: \u2018Why not try?\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
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