For Moorestown High School senior Avery Jaffe, lacrosse is more than just a sport. It’s a passion, an outlet and most recently, a means of connection. This winter, Jaffe’s love for the sport transcended borders as she accompanied the nonprofit organization Israel Lacrosse Association, Inc. across the globe to bring the sport to underserved communities in Israel.
Jaffe, who plays midfield at MHS, spent 11 days at the end of December and early January traveling with the organization whose mission is to make lacrosse the national sport of Israel. The organization’s goal is to use the sport as a means to bridge divides in regional communities.
The organization came on Jaffe’s radar through her older sister who went on the mission trip a year ago. With a little help from her MHS lacrosse coach, Colleen Hancox, Jaffe contacted every Moorestown family with children playing lacrosse at MHS to request donated equipment. She left for Israel with more than 50 pounds of donated equipment.
Jaffe and her fellow players taught clinics to children living in at-risk areas in Ashkelon as well as at orphanages in Herzliya. Children were taken out of class or to their gym classes where the players set up drills, ran demonstrations and generally introduced students to the sport.
“When we were coaching them and got to see the faces on the kids and how much they really liked it, it was really cool,” Jaffe said.
Through the Sticks for Kids program, an initiative under the Israel Lacrosse umbrella, they gave their donated equipment to the children living in the communities they visited. Jaffe said while technically their mission was to teach these kids a new sport, their hope was to give youths in a difficult situation an outlet.
“If times are hard or they don’t have as much, now they have lacrosse,” Jaffe said.
The experience also had a profound personal impact on Jaffe. She said going to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and other sacred spots left her feeling closer to her culture and religion than ever before.
Israel Lacrosse also enables men’s and women’s national lacrosse teams to compete internationally. So, after a week in Israel, the group boarded a plane for Warsaw, Poland where they spent three days playing for Team Israel against Poland’s national lacrosse team. Jaffe said the experience was enlightening in that it showed her how the sport differs from country to country. They spent the handful of days scrimmaging against Poland’s players and eventually winning their formal match-up against the team.
Next year, Jaffe will play lacrosse at the University of Maryland – College Park. In her own life, lacrosse has brought Jaffe a joy that she admits she has trouble putting into words. Her personal hope is that the kids they interacted with on the trip find this same sense of joy in the sport.
To learn more about the Israel Lacrosse Association, visit www.mightycause.com/organization/Israel-Lacrosse-Association.
