Posts in category "Rides"
Golden Gate Ride: Important Information for Riders and Crew
We couldn’t be more excited to come together as a community next week for the 4th Annual Hazon Golden Gate Ride: Pedaling for a Healthy Planet. Please take a couple of minutes to read through this email containing many pertinent details.
Feel free to contact Adam Kotin or Deborah Newbrun with any last minute questions about transportation, housing, packing, arrival – we’re here to support you.
adam.kotin@hazon.org | deborah.newbrun@hazon.org
(415) 397-7020 (Office) | (415) 823-1302 (Cell)
Emergency contact phone number for the retreat site where we will be staying during the ride: Walker Creek Ranch: (415) 491-6000
Getting Your Bike to Camp
We will help transport your bike to the ride from the Bay Area and from Los Angeles at no additional cost. We’ll offer bike loading at the following times and locations. Look for Hazon volunteers and a 14-foot Uhaul truck.
Thursday
San Francisco: 6:30pm – 7:30pm, near 16th Street Mission BART (Walgreens parking lot on Capp St, near 16th).
East Bay: 8:30pm – 9:30pm, Ashby BART.
Friday
San Francisco: Starting at 1:45pm at Jewish Community High School (1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA). Bike loading will begin at 1:45pm. The charter bus will depart promptly at 2:40pm.
Los Angeles: 8:30am – 9:00am at Milken Community High School (15800 Zeldins Way, LA)
Getting Yourself to Camp
Registration opens at 2:30pm on Friday May 24th at Walker Creek Ranch. We are offering a shuttle from San Francisco and LA that will arrive in time for Shabbat. If you are signed up to join us later in the weekend, please note arrival times and directions below.
Driving and Carpooling
We have been in touch with many of you about carpooling up to the ranch. We need to minimize the number of cars being driven to the ranch as much as possible. Any cars driven to the ranch that we are not aware of will be left there and alternative transportation should be arranged to retrieve them.
For approved carpooling to Walker Creek Ranch, please consult these directions.
San Francisco Shuttle
Civic Center BART
- Shuttle departs Civic Center BART at 2:15pm
- The bus can not idle and will depart promptly. There will be no bike loading at this location. If you would like to bring a bike and use this pick up you must utilize our Thursday bike loading locations.
Jewish Community High School
- Shuttle departs JCHS at 2:40pm
- Bike loading starts at 1:45pm. Please arrive no later than 2:25pm.
LA Shuttle/Carpool
- Carpool departs Milken Community High School at 9:00am
- Bike loading available
Weekend Schedule
Hazon is excited to offer a thoughtful and well-rounded program for this year’s retreat. Thanks in advance to all of the participants who are presenting, teaching a session, leading a service, and sharing their interests and skills with the community!
Packing List
Be sure to review the packing list for the Golden Gate Ride. All of your things should fit into one small piece of luggage. Our crew are transporting luggage each day of the ride, so please pack lightly. Our accommodations over the weekend will be rustic but clean and comfortable.
Only those with upgraded housing will be provided linens. All other participants must bring their own linens (sheets, blankets, or sleeping bag), pillow, and towel.
Closing Ceremony
Be sure to invite your friends and family to our closing ceremonies from 2 PM to 3 PM on Monday May 27th at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay (1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA). We encourage you to bring people to join with us in celebrating a successful weekend and in honoring your accomplishments!
Prepare for an Extraordinary Weekend!
A Note from Volunteer Ride Co-Chairs Erica & Adam
Dear Hazon Community,
Ten days from now we will gather in the rolling hills of Marin to share our values of environmentalism, health, and sustainability in the Jewish world and beyond. We hope to be catalysts for positive change through the vitality generated from our cycling adventures, crew spirit, and engaging Shabbat programming. Gear up, bring your ruach(spirit), positivity, and openness — prepare to leave with a spark!
If we have not yet had the chance to meet, please make sure to come say hello to us – Adam and Erica – your friendly volunteer co-chairs for the 2013 Golden Gate Ride. Adam will be riding his spiffy new Trek bicycle and Erica will be supporting riders as an enthusiastic crew member. We both look forward to meeting friends new and old, spending time outside, soaking in the Shabbat sessions, and learning lots from the whole experience.
As the weekend approaches, please reach out to us if you have any questions – we’re here to help and support! We really don’t mind helping, in fact, that’s what we signed up for! Our emails are below.
As the ride draws near, we know many folks are working hard on their fundraising.We’ve found that NOW is the best time to make the push toward your goal.
Here are a few tips:
1. Reinventing the wheel is silly – check out Hazon’s fundraising tools for inspiration and more tips.
2. Make your appeals early, often, and personalized – photos, Facebook shoutouts, a phone call.
3. Follow up is key – many of your soon-to-be-donors just need a quick reminder.
4. Think about how you will say thank you. We plan to write personalized notecards with a photo from our weekend.
5. Use social media: Post about your excitement, your training, and your goals! Here’s a great example…
Lastly, as we get ready for the holiday of Shavuot we are reminded of the lessons from The Book of Ruth. This ancient text incorporates themes of peoplehood, responsibility, and the centrality of the harvest season. These ideas are on our minds as we make the final preparations for the ride, working toward an event with inclusivity and the shared responsibility for the sustainability of our communities. Wishing you a happy holiday and an awesome Golden Gate Ride weekend!
Adam Arenstein & Erica Hymen
2013 Hazon Golden Gate Ride Co-chairs
Israel Ride Info Session in Plano, TX
Discover how the Israel Ride can be your next adventure
Monday, May 20th, 7:00 pm
Chabad of Plano
3904 West Park Blvd. Plano, TX 75075
What does it feel like to cycle on the Israel Ride? Hear from Mark Segal – 2011, 2012, and 2013 Israel Rider – about cycling through Israel, the Middle East’s environmental challenges, and the potential for regional cooperation at the Arava Institute.
Bring your friends with you | All are welcome at this event!
Israel Ride Info Session in North Carolina
Discover how the Israel Ride can be your next adventure
Wednesday, May 29th, 7:30 pm
The Levin JCC
1937 West Cornwallis Road Durham, NC 27705
What does it feel like to cycle on the Israel Ride? Hear from Steve Drysdale, 5-time Israel Rider, about cycling through Israel, the Middle East’s environmental challenges, and the potential for regional cooperation at the Arava Institute.
Join us: Durham — Chapel Hill — Raleigh
Cary — Hillsborough
Bring your friends with you | All are welcome at this event!
Fundraising Made Easy
Thank you for joining Hazon’s Golden Gate Ride! It’s time to flex your fundraising muscles! This weekend we make your fundraising push. Cycle up that mountain if you will.
Fundraising is easier than you think, you just have to get started! Use Hazon’s tools to craft a fundraising plan that will have you reaching your fundraising goal:
- Don’t reinvent the wheel! Use our fundraising letter writing guide.
- Start this weekend! Vamp up your fundraising and send your appeal to no less than 40 friends, family, and coworkers.
- Veteran rider Yesh Ballon shares tricks of the fundraising trade.
- What are you riding for? Read about the winners of our Mini-Grant Awards
Start this Weekend: Raise $1000 in 8 Days
The biggest secret to successful fundraising is to ask everyone you know. Think you’ve exhausted your resources? We’ve got a list to help you think of new people to ask. To get a sense of how your whole community can support you in reaching your fundraising goal, consider this recipe for How to Raise $1000 in Eight Days:
- Donate $50 to yourself
- Ask 4 family members to donate $50
- Ask 10 friends to donate $20
- Ask 5 co-workers to donate $20
- Ask 5 neighbors to donate $15
- Ask 10 people from your synagogue to donate $15
- Ask your boss for a company donation of $100 (Ask if your company will match what you raise)
- Ask 5 businesses that you frequent – like your dry cleaner, hair stylist, or favorite restaurant – to donate $25
Fundraising Tips from Veteran Riders
Yesh Ballon has been one the Golden Gate Ride’s highest fundraisers, participating in 4 rides in 3 years. What are the keys to his success?
Make appeals early and often. Money usually comes in within 48 hour of a request. The more asks, the more donations.
Be Personal. Make your letter personal and specific to you. Tell your potential funders what the Ride is all about, and tell them why you’re so excited to do it. Consider writing personalized letters to different donors to address their specific needs.
Convey Your Enthusiasm. People are inspired by enthusiasm. Talk about the ride. Talk about your training and why you have decided to take on this challenge. Your enthusiasm is contagious — it will encourage your sponsors to be generous in their support.
Be Specific. Include your fundraising goal, and make it ambitious. Put it in bold! The more you ask for, the more people give. Share what your personal financial commitment will be. People are often inspired to see your personal financial commitment and might even be willing to match it. “In addition to training, I am pledging $500 towards my fundraising goal.” Ask for a specific amount and aim high. Say “Please consider a gift of $180”—they can choose to do so, or choose to give you more/less.
Thank your donors. Buy a nice box of thank you notes (environmental or bike theme optional) and hand write–yes, with a pen–a thank you note immediately after each pledge is received, and put it in the snail mail that very day. People will become loyal supporters!
“Thank you for once again being a great support to me and Hazon. This marks my fifth ride—one in Israel and now four in California. I am increasingly impressed by Hazon’s mission and the people engaged in it. Your gift makes their work possible.”
What are you riding for? Mini-Grant Awards Winners Announced
A portion of the fundraising from this year’s ride will be made available as small grants for Jewish and environmental projects on the West Coast. We’re pleased to announce this year’s winners!
13% of YOUR fundraising goes to support these amazing projects:
Milken Community High School
The MCHS Urban Farm Co-op, initiated with help from a Hazon grant two years ago, is a sustainable gardening and food justice initiative at Milken Community High School in Los Angeles. The Co-op plans to expand its garden to a minimum of thirty-six pallets across campus, continuing to connect students to their food sources, to the earth, and to their own potential.
Congregation Beth Sholom
Congregation Beth Sholom seeks to enhance and build upon its existing garden and landscape for our preschool and Hebrew school students, parents, and congregants. Further developing our small outdoor garden will build community around the shared experience of nurturing life and growing the food that is central to so many of the Jewish traditions we celebrate.
Jewish Learning Works
The Nosh Niche is a Jewish cooking project embedded within Jewish LearningWorks’ Shalom Discovery family engagement initiative. The Nosh Niche brings to life issues of food justice and farm-to-table Jewish values cooking lessons, discussion guides, and take-home recipes, along with a cooking feature on our website.
Kehillah Jewish High School
Kehillah seeks to revamp, expand, and improve its small school garden, which was funded and built by a student-led initiative last year. This garden has already begun contributing produce to Kehillah’s meals program, which feeds about 100 people per day with delicious vegetarian food. By growing the garden’s size, as well as its uses on campus, Kehillah can cut down on its food miles, improving overall campus sustainability while also serving as a valuable learning tool.
Temple Emanu-El Preschool
Being in San Francisco, with limited outdoors space, we have been grappling with how to include natural sciences with a focus on ecology to our children and families. This year we have been successful with outdoor education programs such as walking trips through the nearby Presidio and Family Education in Golden Gate Park with a naturalist. Through this project, we hope to bring tanks with natural habitats for animals as well as grow lights and indoor gardening to all of our classrooms.
Peninsula Temple Beth El Green Team
Holistic cooking classes through the ages and stages of life. The classes will focus on various temple groups that will impact our youngest members through our seniors. The emphasis will be to introduce to the audiences the importance of choosing healthy, sustainable ingredients, eating in the season, the nutrients in food and our food supply chain.
Israel Ride Info Session in Philadelphia
Discover how the Israel Ride can be your next adventure
Thursday, May 9th, 7:00 pm
Germantown Jewish Centre
400 W Ellet St Philadelphia, PA 19119
What does it feel like to cycle on the Israel Ride? Hear from David Lehrer- Executive Director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Israel Ride alum- about cycling through Israel, the Middle East’s environmental challenges, and the potential for regional cooperation at the Arava Institute.
Bring your friends with you | All are welcome at this event!
מסע האופניים של מכון הערבה וחזון
מסע האופניים של מכון הערבה וחזון הוא הזדמנות מעולה עבורך לחוות את היופי של ישראל ממושב האופניים שלך. יוצאים להרפתקה עם קהילה ייחודית ומגובשת המגייסת כספים לשני ארגונים מלאי השראה: מכון הערבה וחזון. הצטרפו אלינו לחלק מהמסע או למסע מלא של שבוע מירושלים עד אילת, באחד משני המסלולים המוצעים כאן
השתתפות ברכיבה “הכל כלול”: לינה, שלוש ארוחות ביום, שתיה וכיבוד בהפסקות בדרך, ליווי מקצועי, טכנאים, ליווי רפואי צמוד, ועוד
מירושלים למשאבי שדה
רכיבת כביש במשך יומיים מדהימים, מירושלים לאשקלון, ולאחר מכן לנגב הצפוני. אפשרות זו כוללת יום הכנה חוויתי בבית מלון בירושלים הכולל סיור בעיר העתיקה, רכיבת הכנה ברחבי ירושלים, פיקניק ותדרוך מקיף, וכן הסעות חזרה מצפון הנגב לירושלים בסיום הרכיבה
29-31 אוקטובר
$עלות הרשמה: 275
גיוס כספים: 1200 $ לישראלים או מי שגר בישראל, 1800 $ לתיירים
מסע מלא: מירושלים לאילת
לחוות את הרכיבה המלאה עם מעל 100 רוכבי אופניים. רכיבה מירושלים עד אילת כדי לחוות את הארץ כפי שמעולם לא ראית, ממושב של האופניים שלך. המסע המלא כולל יום הכנה בירושלים, שבת קהילתית נעימה ומשמעותית במצפה רמון, ותחבורה חזרה עם תום המסע לתל האביב- בטיסה- או לירושלים- באוטובוס
29 אוקטובר – 5 נובמבר
$525 :הרשמה
גיוס כספים: 2500 $ לישראלים או מי שגר בישראל, 3600 $ לתיירים
Israel Ride Info Session in Atlanta
Discover how the Israel Ride can be your next adventure
Tuesday April 30, 7:30 pm
Hosted by 2008 Israel Rider Michael Weinstock
What does it feel like to cycle on the Israel Ride? Hear from David Lehrer- Executive Director of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Israel Ride alum- about cycling through Israel, the Middle East’s environmental challenges, and the potential for regional cooperation at the Arava Institute. Meet other Ride alumni as they gather together to reminisce about the incredible experiences they had on the Israel Ride.
Bonus: Alon Tal, Founder of the Arava Institute, will be speaking Tuesday over lunch (11:30 am – 1:30 pm) at Atlantic Station about Israeli Environmental Policy. For more information, contact Beth Gluck at (404) 236-8990 x851.
Bring your friends with you; all are welcome at this event.
Israel Ride in NYC: With Nigel Savage and David Weisberg
Discover how the Israel Ride can be your next adventure
Wednesday, May 8th, 7:30 pm
Hosted by Nigel and Liz Savage
RSVP for details
The Israel Ride: For Yourself. For Israel. For Peace.
Meet and hear from:
- Nigel Savage, Hazon and Israel Ride Founder
- David Weisberg, CEO of Hazon
- David Rendsburg, Ride alum and 8-time staff member of the Ride
- Annie Jacobs, former Program Assistant at the Arava Institute (and current Dairy Apprentice at Isabella Freedman)
- Arava and Israel Ride alumni
They will speak about cycling through Israel, the Middle East’s environmental challenges, and the potential for regional cooperation at the Arava Institute.
The Arava Institute Hazon Israel Ride is a weeklong cycling adventure from Jerusalem to Eilat, including 5 fully-supported riding days and a Shabbat rest day.
Bring your friends with you | All are welcome at this event!
Why I Ride – Sue Reinhold
I am riding in my third Hazon Golden Gate Ride this Memorial Day Weekend. I first rode because it seemed like a fun way to raise money to do good things in a Jewish way. I next rode not just for that – dayenu! – but for the powerful sense of community I knew I’d get with fellow riders. Where else can you finish gutting out a 60-mile ride through the most beautiful coastal hills imaginable and then turn to study Torah with some kindred text-loving nerds?
This year, I ride with some deeper intent. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my investment advisory firm’s philosophy around investing. My firm is different from many – we invest our clients’ assets with somewhat of a ‘slow money’ approach. Kind of like some people grow and cook ‘slow food,’ we invest patiently around long-term value, and avoid fast-money strategies much as one might avoid fast food (and, our opinion is that fast money, like fast food, is pervasive and ultimately destabilizing to the entire ecosystem in which it is produced).
Fortuitously, I attended the Hazon Jewish Food Festival in San Francisco last month and learned with Yigal Deutscher, the manager of Hazon’sShmita Project and Founder of 7Seeds, who led very compelling teachings about the agricultural laws in the Torah. These laws include Shmita, the seven-year cycle that requires that the land and people slow down, share resources, and shorten and then ultimately forgive debts. Shmita is not business as usual, but business unusual.
Now, I don’t run a farm. And yet, there are powerful lessons to be learned from our ancient teachings about modern-day business and investment. These laws address how to arrest the extremes of the business cycle, how to move patiently and slowly with care and intent when it comes to putting resources to work, and how to make sure others are cared for in your act of producing. This year I ride to continue the conversation and learning so that I can continue to bring these strands of Torah and the way I work for others, together.
Sue Reinhold, Ph.D.
Third-year Rider, Hazon Golden Gate Ride
Founding Partner, North Berkeley Investment Partners
