The Story of our Founding
"A bicycle rider was killed at the intersection between Hod Hasharon and Kfar Saba. The biker, who was 52 when he was killed, left behind three children". This was the news that Hadar Kess saw when she was 14 years old which informed her that her father had been killed, that she was one of the children who had been left behind. Besides the tragic loss and the pain accompanying the death of a parent, Hadar experienced a huge sense of loneliness, without friends her age who understood what she was coping with, and without an established support system that makes room for and acknowledges her loss and the accompanying feelings.
In 2016, Hadar joined LEAD, the Israel Youth Leadership Development program. With the support of the program, when she was only 16, Hadar founded the Sunflowers project (which eventually became the Sunflowers non-profit organization), all out of a desire that no child would have to experience what she had to experience all alone, and in the aim of offering social and emotional support to orphaned children and youth searching for their place in the complex reality forced upon them.
This is the only place where I can talk about my father, where I know that I will not be judged and that they can talk to me about it without embarrassment. They simply really understand me because I not the only one here that this happened to her. Sunflowers is a gift I received.
The first Sunflowers branch was established in Hod Hasharon, Hadar’s city of residence, in 2016. The second branch was opened in 2017 by Noa Chen, who lost her father when she was only 4 years old. Out of her personal pain Noa decided to provide the support she had not received.
Today Sunflowers serves as a home for orphans and orphanhood in Israel, providing three main responses: community response - with five activity branches, a project that supports adult orphans and an early childhood program; legislation and rights exhaustion response – advance and advocate for legislation and policy change, and advance rights exhaustion for orphans and their families; and an awareness raising and information response - raise awareness about orphanhood and its ramifications, and in the future design information programs that will provide tools for those in the orphan’s environment.