Hey RSD,

I am once again writing to tell you about our continued involvement in
Ultimate Peace in the Middle East and to ask for your help as we
approach the final weeks before UP Camp 2010 goes live!


Ultimate Peace is an organization that uses Ultimate to bring youth
together to learn and play in regions where political and social
tensions exist. Our focus on youth is particularly important to me:
as a coach, I’m already a great believer in focusing on future adults
as a way of addressing social and global concerns. That Ultimate
Peace does this through Ultimate – a sport with an amazing approach to
sportsmanship, an approach that has quite literally changed my life –
may help explain just why I’m such a fan of what Ultimate Peace is
doing. More information is found on the Ultimate Peace website,
http://www.ultimatepeace.org/


Last year was the inaugural year of Ultimate Peace and, I’m thrilled
to say, we were wildly successful. A group of American Ultimate
players and coaches travelled to the Middle East and hosted a series
of clinics for local youth – Palestinian and Israeli Jewish and Arab
Israeli, together – to introduce them to the sport of Ultimate and the
respect between players respect that’s inherent in the sport. The
kids learned, they played together, they self-officiated and at the
end of the day they truly were excited about getting to play more in
the months to come. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the experience of
watching the sun set on the fields as Frisbees flew everywhere (they
were, after all, still learning) and the kids laughing and exchanging
e-mail addresses with peers from communities they would never
otherwise visit.


You can read more about our successes at http://www.ultimatepeace.org/media/;
be sure to check out the Al Jazeera articles and Marc Altman photos to
get a sense of just how amazing it was.


At the same time, as we were implementing our plan, we were also
recognizing how we could do better. Many of us were better at
teaching Ultimate than we were at team building and helping break down
cultural barriers (not surprisingly). We were incredibly successful
given our naiveté…but we agreed that the next time around, we needed
to do some things differently to be truly effective. And we agreed
that it was absolutely critical that there be a next time: we
recognized that, without appropriate follow-up, nothing we’d begun
would last.


With all that in our heads, we’re planning to make this year’s
Ultimate Peace even better. Instead of one-day clinics, we will be
hosting a week-long camp for 120 local Jewish and Palestinian youth.
The players will learn and play Ultimate, but also experience a week
of living with their fellow campers. We are also working on leaving
behind an infrastructure of Ultimate – neighborhood/school teams, and
a regional league where they can continue to play and connect.


This will be amazing, but it won’t be cheap: we are, in short, in
heavy fundraising mode and every dollar counts. I know this is a hard
time financially, but if you are able to Ultimate Peace – at any level
– please consider helping to make this happen. Donations are tax-
deductible, and can be made by credit card, PayPal or check at
http://www.ultimatepeace.org/donate/ If you do choose to support us
financially, please let them know that it was me (Danny) who sent you.


Lastly, if you know of anyone who might be interested in or moved by
this, please feel free to put them in touch with me or share these
links with them. Thank you so much for considering this and for
supporting us– financially or otherwise – in what we do.


Respectfully,
Danny