Mother Thanks Girls “Achos” Program

By Chaya S.

I live in an out of town community. This year, we decided to send one of our daughters to a local non-Lubavitch school. But I was worried. Where would her Chayus for Chassidishkiet come from? There are obviously no school programs and hachanos for chassidishe yomim tovim, let alone programs such as achos hatemimim, and the opportunity to learn chassidus in school.

Then, by word of mouth, I heard of a program called Achos online, for high school aged Lubavitch girls who are in non-Lubavitch schools. It sounded like just what I was looking to do for her, so after confirming that I had the right webpage, I signed her up, hoping that this would give her some semblance of a Chassidishe extracurricular program.

Was I mistaken!

Not only did they send an achos hatemimim sheet for her to fill out with different levels on it, leaving space for growth, as well as monthly prizes sent in the mail, But My daughter also looked forward to getting her achos prizes in the mail, looking forward to seeing what it would be! They also created hachanos for the girls for Yud Tes Kislev and yud alef nissan, arranged shiurim for them as well as Farbrengens. They sent prizes for saying Tehillim on Shabbos Mevorchim.

This was all done over the phone and email.

Of course, what would Achos be without an overnight trip or Shabbaton? The girls all live in different places, and have different school schedules, yet there was still a Shabbaton in Crown Heights for them. They arranged an apartment for all the girls to stay in together, meals and shabbos seudos for them to eat, and a full schedule of things which to do. It was after my daughter came home from the Shabbaton, telling me all about what they did, from the tour of 770, to Mivtzoyim, to biking, that I learned who was behind this program.

I was shocked to find out that it is run by two girls, who wanted to give all Lubavitch girls a program which would enable them to learn chassidus, have the Achos experience, and do things which they don’t get in non-Lubavitch schools. Not only that, but based on the quality of the programs and the prizes, I was shocked to find out that it was done for seven girls. Some people might think “seven people? That’s not worth my time, they can figure out their own solution.” These girls thought, “seven whole worlds? That is amazing, let’s do the best we can!”

I found it surprising that from such a large community of high school girls in non-Lubavitch schools, only seven had heard of the program, and were enrolled.

I would like to publicly thank these 2 girls for all they have given my daughter.

If anyone would like to enroll in this amazing program for next year, their website is http://achoshatmimim.weebly.com/

Although it is not a ‘state-of-the-art’ website, it is worth signing up.

A very thankful Mother

PS: This is not an advertisement, just my way of saying thank you.