[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by MissInformation

Alisha Wallenstein was a student on team 116 before I was on the team. I believe she is part of, if not the driving force behind FIRST being in Israel. She came back as a mentor on team 116 for the 2002-2003 season and that's how I met her. Her drive to bring FIRST to Israel is not because it's high profile. I'm not 100% sure if her job took her to Israel or if it was family or personal, but one thing I know she took with her was her love of FIRST. If there were more people like Alisha, FIRST would be everywhere.

Heidi

I wasn't aware of this, and that definitely is an inspiring story. It'd be nice if there was some press release or explaination somewhere. At any rate, I agree that it's great that other people are so enthused about FIRST and are trying to spread it. I'm just questioning the decision to hold a brand new regional in a foreign country with a small number of teams that are all rookies. There are 4-5 more veteran teams in South America, so a regional could just as logically be held there.

EDIT: I'll stop now as Dave has cleared all this up very well. I hope I haven't offended him or anyone else too terribly.