OU-IPA Program has been reinstated!!!

I received the following letter from a friend who was among this year's applicants as a follow-up to last week's letter. This is great news!

February 15, 2005

Dear OU-IPA Internship Applicant,

We write again to follow up on our letter of last week with regard to the OU-IPA Washington Internship Program to which you have applied for this summer. In our earlier letter, we informed you that due to a sudden and unexpected change of circumstances within the OU-IPA, we believed we would be unable to conduct the Program this summer. That decision was made out of an abundance of concern over the possible disruption of your summer plans, and wanting to alert you to the situation as soon as possible.

The OU-IPA believes that the Washington Internship Program has great value to its participants and to the community. Thus, even subsequent to sending to you the earlier letter, the OU-IPA continued in discussion and efforts to overcome the obstacles to conducting the program this summer. We are pleased to report we have been able to address the obstacles and will be able, with G-d's help, to conduct the program this summer, as originally planned. [Emphasis theirs]

We hope that you remain interested in participating in the program and would like to "re-activate" your application. If that is the case, simply e-mail ipadc@ou.org and inform us of that interest. In such event, we will reinstitute your application. (Please note, that in connection with last week's letter we refunded your application fee to your credit card. We will now waive that fee for you in light of any worry the uncertainty of the past few days may have caused you.)

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible, and we look forward to providing the 2005 Summer Interns with a most rewarding and educational experience.

Sincerely,

Mark Bane

Nathan J. Diament

Also, via Town Crier, is this post by Mendy Ganchrow:

I was forwarded information over the last few days from 2 blog sites regarding a suspension of the OU IPA summer internship in Washington. This program which I created and nurtured had 45 college interns in the program last summer serving in Senate and House offices.
Thus I am extremely pleased that after a tele-conference today of the IPA executive committee the program is back on track.I am grateful that individuals from throughout the U.S., Israel and two who were on a mission in Bulgaria took part in the discussion.
Over the next few weeks we hopefully will get word of the hiring of a new individual who will direct this program, which I consider one of my most important successes at the OU.

This is wonderful!!!