And the Summer Promises to Be - 04/04/2019
As we enter the final third of our recruitment season, we continue to be very proud of continued strong recruitment and registration. Overall- registration is up 13% over last year to date and confirmations are up an even stronger almost 20% to date. As I write these words, over 4100 people have applied for this summer’s programs and over 1470 have paid deposits, some 56% of our goal of 2600 participants this summer. Many programs, especially among our North American community partners, have already exceeded last year’s full registration numbers. In this context it is worthy to highlight the following communities that have had exceptional Onward Israel recruitment seasons: New York, Toronto, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, North Jersey, Chicago, Columbus, South Palm and Montreal. Other communities like Boston, Miami and Pittsburgh and Baltimore are also slated to be ahead of last year’s total number of recruits as well. Recruitment is strong not just in the communities however. The Campus initiative, now consisting of 8 schools, has already attracted over 300 students. National programs like Tamid (which is already completely full) and the two national Hillel cohorts are developing lengthy waitlists. The Camp Counselor program is also considerably ahead of last year’s pace on recruitment. And finally, perhaps the most impressive story of this recruitment season are the theme based programs: 14 different offerings that already have some 240 paid participants- more than a hundred over last year’s pace. While much can happen of course until participants actually arrive in Israel, these strong recruitment numbers are very encouraging and are testimony to the amazing work by so many of our partners in marketing, recruiting, screening and selecting. This is truly a collaborative effort!