Yad Sarah, the largest voluntary organization in Israel, provides a spectrum of free or nominal cost services designed to make life easier for sick, disabled and elderly people and their families.
Today, almost four decades after it was founded, Yad Sarah has more than 100 branches throughout Israel run by more than 6,000 volunteers, and saves the Israeli economy several hundred million dollars per year in hospitalization and medical costs.
Yad Sarah’s mission is to keep the ill and the elderly in their homes and out of institutions as long as possible. Home care in the natural environment of the family is most conducive to healthy recuperation, both physically and emotionally. It also costs much less.
Yad Sarah’s best-known service is the lending of medical and rehabilitative equipment on a short-term basis free of charge to anyone who needs it from a stock of thousands of items, from crutches and wheelchairs to oxygen concentrators and electronic monitors.
In addition, Yad Sarah provides a wide range of other services, including transportation and day care centers for the disabled, drop-in centers and minimum-charge dental clinics for the elderly, personal computerized emergency alarms monitored 24 hours a day, and guidance & exhibition centers which help disabled people choose the assistive devices most suited to their needs.
The organization also provides equipment and services for new mothers, infants, recently discharged hospital patients and others in need, and a wide range of volunteer-run creative, recreational and rehabilitative activities for homebound people.
Yad Sarah’s annual operating budget is financed almost completely by donations, over 80 percent of which are raised within Israel. No ongoing government assistance is received.
One out of two Israeli families has been helped by Yad Sarah. Over 380,000 Israelis use its services yearly.
Yad Sarah pledges to treat all who turn to it in need with understanding and warmth, to respond to all with an open heart, and to continue on its path of humanity and chesed.
