Renovation of the Volunteer House

The Labor Battalion House (the Volunteer House) - our story begins here! Everyone that holds Kibbutz Ayelet Hashahar close to their heart, feels a pinch when they pass by the impressive 100-year old Labor Battalion House, which has seen days of glorious history, and is now standing abandoned and neglected. The purpose of our crowdfunding is to restore and renovate the Labor Battalion House, for the purpose of establishing a learning, experience and culture center. The Labor Battalion House will be again a thriving and vibrant center, which will attract diverse populations and tell magnificent stories of the past, while looking to the future. An archive named after Hillel Landsman will be established in the building, which will present historical materials of Ayelet Hashahar and the settlements of the area to researchers and the general public. The core of the activity in the restored Labor Battalion House will be based on a unique model of educational and experiential content packages, in collaboration with the Tel-Hai College - soon the Galilee University, which will appeal to a wide variety of audiences in Israel and around the world. Tel-Hai College, the kibbutz administrations, the Upper Galilee Regional Council and the Site Preservation Council gave the go-ahead for the project, and the estimated cost of the project according to a recent engineering survey is 5 million NIS. Now, we are facing the next stage - raising the seed money for the project and this is where you, the community, enter the picture - for detailed engineering planning and rendering, recruiting donors and funds to contribute to the project, we need your support! On 17.11.22 at 18:00 we will launch a crowdfunding campaign during a festive event at the Labor Battalion House. The whole community is invited to join and donate. The more people join us, the more significant partners we can harness. We are waiting for you! Together we can restore the Labor Battalion House (the Volunteer House) to it's glory, because our story begins here! About the Building Built in the summer of 1922 by a fraternal group from the Trumpeldor labor regiment and completed in October (within only four months of construction). This is the first concrete structure in the area, where you can still see the pebbles that were brought from the Sea of Galilee to prepare the concrete. In addition to the barn, the building was used over the years as a hostel (on the second floor) for the refugees of Yesod HaMaale and members of Ayelet Hashahar, who hid from the rioters, and immigrants who came in the 1930s. In the 1940s, the underground broadcasting station "Kol HaGilil" was established on the second floor. From 1968, the use and name of the place was changed to the "Volunteer House" until 1995. Since then, the place has been abandoned and neglected. About Ayelet Hashahar Ayelet Hashar, the first kibbutz in the region, is a significant milestone in the history of Jewish settlement in the Upper Galilee. The beginning of the settlement in the Galilee played a decisive role in the formation of Israel and even so, the story of the place and its people, in all its various aspects - settlement, security, agriculture and multiculturalism, remains unknown to the general public. It is a story of pioneering in extremely difficult economic and security conditions. A story of primacy. Until then, ICA did not allow groups to settle on its land. The construction style of the first "HaParsa" houses has no similar counterpart in Israel, since they were built during a dispute over the form of the settlement: Moshav or Kibbutz. Over the years, the place became a central focus for security, settlement and agriculture in the area and was to the largest kibbutz in the Upper Galilee.