Engineers and Cucumbers, an Unlikely Mix

The wave of volunteering that has swept our country since the events of October 7^th hasn’t skipped the Faculty of Engineering. Earlier this month, a bus full of students from our Faculty of Engineering set out to volunteer in agricultural work at the now understaffed farms. “When we first came up with this initiative, we were only going to send out one bus, and weren’t sure if we could even fill that. After we sent out messages in the groups, that bus got full very quickly,” shares Or Shohat, the new Chairman of the Faculty of Engineering’s student council, which is behind the venture.

Per Shohat, a third-year electrical engineering student in the bioengineering and electro-optics tracks, the student council realized almost immediately the urge of non-reserve duty students to volunteer. “Students were yearning to act, not just volunteer, but to do something social, something that would replace this sudden lack of friends, of a school environment, amid the war that stopped everything in its tracks,” he says. “The council’s first initiatives were more of the social variety, and were held via Zoom: get-togethers, extracurricular lectures by faculty lecturers, and it was great. Then, when the agricultural crisis started getting more media attention, we realized that was something we could do to contribute, we have people who can help. We started making calls and check online, through organizations like Brothers in Farms, to see who needed our help.”

It came down to Moshav Ahituv, north of Netanya, where several farms needed helping hands. “We couldn’t take students to areas of conflict, because it was dangerous, but farmsteads throughout the entire country were in need of working hands, whether because Thai workers had fled the country, or because husbands and workers are on reserve duty, or because supply lines had changed due to the war,” explains Shohat. I myself know this firsthand: My family has a farm that’s run almost solely by family members, and when everyone’s out on reserve duty, there’s no one to do the work. These people need help. We can help.”

The Faculty of Engineering’s volunteer bus arrived at the Ahituv fields on Sunday morning. Students staked up juvenile cucumber bushes, or picked cucumbers and cherry tomatoes. “The students had a very positive experience. All grade levels were represented, male and female, from high-school students to fourth years, including people who were supposed to start their first academic year which was postponed due to the war. Even the Dean of the faculty himself joined and helped out,” Shohat reveals. “In fact, because demand was so high, we considered adding another bus, but eventually decided to stick with one as a pilot – and good thing we did, because we had much to learn, logistically speaking: I, for one, arrived by car, which ended up being in our favor because the fields are pretty far from the moshav, so we didn’t have facilities like bathrooms or drinking water. So we, the council, drove out and brought back 72 liters of water, and work gloves, and throughout the day helped students get from the moshav to the fields and back. We learned a lot from this experience, and next time we’ll be better prepared, and I’m sure it’ll be perfect.

Sure enough, the next time is already in the works, and the student council is on the lookout for its next volunteer project. “The council and I have plenty of ideas and plans for the upcoming year, and despite the hardships forced on us, we’re happy to take on the challenges and opportunities this year has to offer, and I’m sure we will make the most of it,” he concludes. “I’d like to applaud our faculty and our students, who are always enthusiastic of our ideas and opportunities, and bring up their own ideas as well. It’s moments like these that you see how the students come together and strengthen each other, how the staff takes care of us, because the Faculty of Engineering is like a little family. Now we just wait for the members of this small family who are on reserve duty to complete their missions and come back to us safe and sound, so we can start the school year the right way.