Parents of students at a school in Ramat Hasharon collected money for the 73-year-old street cleaner so that he could fly to Ethiopia to visit his family after not seeing them for four years.
The cleaner, Avraham Chana, lacked NIS 7,500 for the trip, and within a day the parents collected NIS 10,000.
The person who initiated this beautiful operation is Liat Ben Rashi Mesharki, mother of three students at the Yael Rom school.
"An older, charming, warm and cordial man works, and I had the chance to have a few conversations with him," she tells how the initiative was born.
"He told me that he was a school principal in Ethiopia and had four children. He said that he had not seen his children for a long time and noted that the flight was expensive and he lacked two thousand dollars.
"He asked if I knew any associations that could help. I told him I would check, and then the idea of raising money for him came to fruition," she said.
"I assumed that a lot of people here know him, because he is a very nice and kind-hearted person. I sent a message to the group of school parents and wrote that anyone who wants to donate no matter what the amount. The rate of fundraising surprised me.
"We raised 10,000 shekels very quickly. I wrote to the parents that we would give him 7,500 shekels and the rest would be divided equally among the other cleaners here in the district. They would also get a nice amount."
Yesterday (Sunday) Yael handed over the collected donations to Avraham.
"He was very excited. He asked me what gift I wanted, that he would bring me from Ethiopia."
Avraham immigrated from Ethiopia to Israel 14 years ago alone.
His wife and four children remained in Ethiopia.
"I wanted to fly to Ethiopia to visit the family, to see my wife and children. I'm here alone. My wife didn't want to come here and the family stayed there. I haven't seen them in 4 years. They collected money for me so I could go visit my family. They are good people and I tell them Thank you. I was very excited that they collected money for me. Now I can travel to see my family."
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