$5.5 million from Helmsley Trust to benefit three Israeli health projects

Jewish National Fund among recipients of grant money.

United Hatzalah treats volunteers for trauma (photo credit: UNITED HATZALAH‏)
United Hatzalah treats volunteers for trauma
(photo credit: UNITED HATZALAH‏)
Three Israeli healthcare projects -- most involving the periphery -- will benefit from a $5.5 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust in New York. The grants follow the $20 million granted by the trust to institutions here less than a year ago and are part of a continuing effort to invest in the country’s leading charitable institutions and health and safety projects.
 
The voluntary organization Ezra LeMarpeh will receive almost half of the grant to complete a medical rehabilitation center under construction in Sderot. A $1,900,000 grant to the Jewish National Fund will help build a regional medical center for the growing Halutza community in Israel’s northwest Negev region. Funding to the all-volunteer first aid organization United Hatzalah will receive $1,162,444 to build an expanded, centralized national dispatch center to handle and respond to hundreds of thousands of emergency medical calls each year.
 
“These grants focus mainly on southern communities that have borne the brunt of ongoing war,” said Helmsley trustee Sandor Frankel. “Like so many of our grants, those announced today reinforce the Trust’s commitment to helping all Israeli residents living in Israel’s periphery and in the center lead healthy lives in very challenging circumstances.”