Lag Ba’omer Wristband Chain to Extend for Miles

As part of a major campaign to recruit children to join in its annual Lag Ba’omer parades across the country, Chabad in Israel has taken a page from “cause” organizations such as ‘Livestrong’ and is distributing plastic fashion wristbands to children throughout the country.

The wristband distribution is part of an overall campaign to attract kids to the parade and activities that accompany it, and to provide incentives for children to participate in Chabad activities all year long.

The wristband, in three colors – blue, red, and green – have the design of a heart embedded on it. The idea is to split kids up into three “teams,” which will initially induce a competitive spirit among participants in the program, as they seek to build the bigger teams. But the object of the post-parade activity will be to build a multi-colored chain of wristbands – with the lesson being that all Jews need to work together, and are responsible for each other.

The campaign kicked off Sunday morning, with more than 500 buses around the country sporting large, colorful ads for the parade and the wristbands. Chabad plans to distribute hundreds of thousands of wristbands over the next several weeks, with the post-parade activity calling for a national chain of a quarter-million wristbands.

The project is being conducted with the help of the Hop children’s channel, and the Ben-Natan Golan advertising agency.