Philadelphia-Area Group Seeking Weeklong Housing For 1,000 Visiting Jewish Teen Athletes
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The Maccabi Games are coming to the Philadelphia area this summer, and local organizers are looking for families to host the approximately one thousand teenagers coming to the region to compete.
For the first time in ten years, Philadelphia will host the JCC Maccabi Games -- the largest gathering of Jewish teenagers in the world. Competitors from out of town will need a place to bunk between August 14 and 19th.
Games director Beth Segal says they are looking for several hundred Jewish families who can house a minimum of two athletes each. She says the homes do not need to be kosher, and the experience can be a rewarding.
"With the way that the Internet and the ease of everyone keeping in touch nowadays -- between cell phones and e-mail and Twitter and Facebook and all that great stuff -- we're creating relationships that can last a lifetime," she tells KYW Newsradio.
Segal says host families need to live within a forty-minute drive (during morning rush hour) of the Kaiserman JCC in Wynnewood, Pa.
The games are an Olympic-style sporting event held every summer in North America. For more information go to www.phillymaccabi.com.
Reported by Brad Segall, KYW Newsradio 1060
