“Seeing what I’ve seen here, I don’t care what your age is; I don’t care what profession you’re in if you can’t be inspired and enlightened to see that bringing passion into what you do is really the secret sauce. It’s about thinking outside that box and knowing that no matter what age you are and where you come from, you can always do more.”

There are a lot of worthy causes people donate to all over the world, some in their own communities and some all the way across the world. But what drives people to travel to the other side of the globe to show their generosity?

Jeff and Vivian Aronson from Davie, Florida, a happily married couple with seven children, are part of the altruistic group of people who support Sheba. We sat down with them to learn more about what giving means to them and why they chose Sheba.

Jeff, who has worked in the healthcare industry for over 30 years, is the co-founder of EquipX – a healthcare cost-reduction software. He was introduced to Sheba by a colleague named Jessica.

It didn’t take long before Jeff became interested in Sheba and its activities. When he heard of the Friends of Sheba week, during which participants were invited to take part in a special field hospital training exercise while learning more about Israel and Sheba, he jumped on the opportunity.

Just two months after he first heard about Sheba, Jeff and Vivian found their way to Israel, and even though their trip was just eight days long, they felt it was a “once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

“My single greatest impression of what we have learned and seen firsthand about Sheba is the incredible compassion that Sheba has for the patients and their fellow colleagues, and I’ve never seen anything like this back in the United States,’ said Jeff. “It’s patient-centric here, and the doctors have this love to do everything they possibly can to drive a compassionate outcome for their patients, and that’s unique to me.”

While Jeff and Vivian enjoyed their trip to Israel and Sheba in its entirety, as a member of the
software industry, Jeff was particularly interested in Sheba’s innovation center, which promotes healthcare advances in Israel and worldwide. According to Jeff, Sheba’s commitment to promoting both medical innovation and patient care on a global scale was something he found remarkable.

“In our world today, everything is about borders. Sheba takes away those borders, and it brings it down to the human element. I often thought: we have a US healthcare system, and you have an Israeli healthcare system, but now It’s clear to me that healthcare should, naturally, cross borders to help people.”

On her part, Vivian explained that her most memorable experience of the Friends of Sheba week was the field hospital training exercise.

“It was amazing to learn about the incredible things that were being done in Sheba field hospitals, and one thing that really left a big impression on me is that for the field hospitals, a bunch of the funding is coming from donations, and I think that gives Sheba a little more freedom with what they can do in having accountability for the projects they’re working on. For me, it also brought to life the importance of what we’re doing here. We hope to bring some of this back to the States and to spread the word of all the good things Sheba is doing.”

Thank you, Jeff and Vivian, for your support!