in a country where one-third of the children live below the poverty line.
Our largest program is our sandwich program that feeds thousands of Israeli schoolchildren every school day of the year.
The program started in 2003 when HOT partnered with the elderly women volunteers from the Beit Frankforter Community Center, who were at that time preparing sandwiches for about 100 children. The Program was first expanded to 200, then 400, then 800, and early in 2011 it reached almost 8,000 sandwiches every school day. This incredible growth could not have been possible without the help of a former donor to HOT (see below) who financed a huge portion of this program and without the help of Leket, Israel, formerly known as Table to Table, who in early 2011 prepared and distributed more than 7,000 sandwiches every school day.
The children who need our sandwiches may be from low-income families, from families where one parent is sick, is unemployed, or is in prison. The children are a mixture of sabras (native Israelis), and new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and South America. For many, the sandwich is the only meal they have before dinner, for others it is lunch and/or a supplement to a completely inadequate diet.
Every school has to go through a screening procedure to become part of the program. Volunteers make periodic visits to schools to check on how the project is running and to make sure that there is no abuse of the project and that the distribution of sandwiches to the children is handled with dignity. Hands On Tzedakah meets with the men and women who make the sandwiches and pack the lunches. We go along for deliveries, and visit with the principals of recipient schools. To quote from a letter we received from one of the schools, “…the food does not only meet physical needs, but also allows the students to study under better conditions and, as a result, improves their academic achievement. I believe this will ultimately allow them to break the cycle of poverty and fulfill their dreams of a better future.”
During the 2010/2011 school year, between the Beit Frankforter and Leket programs almost 8,000 sandwiches were being prepared and delivered daily to more than 100 schools in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Hadera, Bet Shemesh, Ra’anana, Bat Yam, Ramle, Akko, Haifa, Netanya, Kiryat Gat, Beit Shean, Givat Olga, Maale Adumin, Rishon, Mraar, B’nei Brak, Pardes Katz and many other cities, towns and villages in Israel. A full-time volunteer runs the Leket program. The project functions in different ways in different towns. There are a number of cities where Leket only supplies the ingredients and partners with other organizations that handle making the sandwiches and supervising their distribution. Other schools receive the makings of the sandwiches and the school staff prepares the sandwiches. There are also schools where the children make the sandwiches. Tablecloths, gloves and small bags are provided for the making and packing of the sandwiches.
The children receive a large freshly baked roll filled with hummus, cheese, chocolate spread, tehina or tuna. The roll is often accompanied by a fruit or vegetable that comes through Leket’s gleaning program (see below) and yogurts and milk that Leket receives as contributions due to their short shelf life.
HOT is no longer supporting the Beit Frankforter program because Leket’s bulk buying and use of donated and “gleaned” food permits it to supply meals at a much lower cost.
During the 2010/2011 school year we “directly” paid for more than 1,000 of the then almost 8,000 meals in the Sandwich a Day Program for Every Child Program. The others were paid for by (i) the former HOT donor and (ii) alternate funding obtained by Beit Frankforter, and (iii) other Leket donors.
We were hoping to ask our donors for designated gifts to permit us to have Leket take as many as 20 more schools off the “waiting list.” Unfortunately, food costs have gone up and Leket now estimates that this year it will cost 55 cents a sandwich (rather than the 49/50 cents it cost last year) resulting in Leket needing approximately $65,000 to continue to feed the children it was feeding at the end of the 2010/2011 school year.
HOT has designated $125,000 (paying for 1,400 sandwiches) from its undesignated funds to ensure there are no cuts in this program and we are looking to our donors to help us continue expanding the program to more hungry kids. $99 will feed a child for the entire school year, $990 will feed ten children, and $9,900 will feed a hundred children.
On a personal note, one of the major goals of
HOT is to marry our donor investor’s
with projects that touch their heart. In no place have we been more successful
than in the Sandwich Program.
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In addition to the Sandwich Program Leket rescues food (from catering halls and Army Bases) and distributes it late at night to the poor, and utilizes thousands of volunteers who “glean” the fields (pick fruit and vegetables from farms where the owners fulfill their biblical obligation to permit the poor to pick their needs from the outside perimeter of their field).
The needs of these programs are huge. Recently HOT has given grants of more than $80,000 to purchase freezer containers, a truck to “rescue” food, and both a tractor and a trailer for its gleaning program. I encourage donors to contact me to discuss these needs that continue to grow