Eighteen British teens from the youth movement Bnei Akiva just cycled from Manchester to London—178 miles—to raise money for a sheltered playground in Sderot, Israel. The cycle began on March 30 and lasted four days.

At the moment, the situation in Sderot is catastrophic. For the past seven years, the people of Sderot have lived under constant attack from gunfire and Kassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip by Palestinians. Between October 2000 and November 2007, 6,311 rockets have landed in Sderot.

“The situation in Sderot is really terrible,” says David Bodansky, 22, one of the cycling participants and a medical student at Birmingham University. “It doesn’t get enough coverage in the news and people don’t care. I’ve gone to Sderot a couple of times with Bnei Akiva, and we visited the family of a girl who was caught out in the open with her brother one Shabbat. She threw herself on top of him and was hit by a rocket. She died saving her brother.”

David decided to take part in the cycle after being elected to the governing body of Bogrim, a program for young adults. The group is made up of students who have left school and who generally spent their gap year in Israel and now help run Bnei Akiva. Each student has a project he or she is in charge of organizing, and the responsibilities of this playground project belonged to David. “Currently, children can’t go outside to play, as they’ve only got 15 seconds warning of a Kassam missile attack,” he says. “I heard a girl was killed in a playground a couple of weeks ago.”

The cycling journey to raise money for these sheltered playgrounds is called “Bayit L’Bayit,” because the group cycled from the Bnei Akiva base in London to the base in Manchester, a trip that resembled the famous walk in Israel called “yam l’yam,” during which people travel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Kinneret.

“No one’s really cycled this route before, especially for charity,” David says. Among the participants was cancer survivor Joseph Machta, 19, currently studying in a yeshiva in Israel. Joseph says, “I thought it would be a great challenge, fitness-wise, and I wanted to do something for Sderot.” Citing Lance Armstrong as an inspiration, Joseph adds: “I’ve yet to visit Sderot, but many of my friends have and I’m told it’s not such a pleasant experience. People’s outlook there is surprisingly positive, but it’s hard to maintain that when under constant attack.”

Another participant, 20-year-old Katie Woolf, is a first-year university student studying physiotherapy. Her reasons for taking part in the bike ride are that she loves cycling and the ideology of Bnei Akiva, a Zionist movement. “Building a playground with a shelter could help get some normal play back in the lives of these children, even under the horrid circumstances,” she says.

When asked how they prepared for the lengthy cycle, Katie said: “I [went] to the gym most days at my university and cycled around my area. Also, my personal trainer friend set me a schedule.”

David said, “Training is hard work! My routine [was] to cycle nine miles to the gym, swim and then cycle back.”

Joseph added that he “cycled around two hours a day, which works out at about 25 miles a day.” He also ran seven kilometres twice a week and did some weight training to keep his body strong and supportive.

On top of the physical training, each participant had to raise £500 ($1,000). The goal was to raise a total of $80,000 for the sheltered playground. For more information about the program, visit www.jkaye.co.uk/joomla.

Mandy Cohen is 18 and a member of the JVibe Teen Advisory Board. She is at university studying journalism and psychology. She loves fashion, traveling, learning new languages and going to the movies.