Delightful Donations of Toys
It’s been an amazing end of the year here at the JCS Kosher Food Bank. We have had so many wonderful donations of toys that our youngest clients have been in Hanukkah Heaven! Thanks to the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, we received hundreds of gifts collected at the Maccabi Games. We also received more than 300 toys from Sarah Lang’s Bat Mitzvah. Sarah and her parents, Rabbi Jory and Ida Lang, worked the entire year collecting toys and making them into centerpieces for Sarah’s Bat Mitzvah.
Toys, games, and Hanukkah candles and gelt came in from so many synagogues and all our schools in the Kids for Kosher Food Bank Program. This would not have been possible without the hard work of the KKFB chairs, Anat Garzon and Sharon Rudman. We had two visits from the newly established Miami Country Day Jewish Students Association. The first was from their Faculty Advisor, the beautiful and intelligent 10th grade World Literature teacher Alison Schwartzbaum (yes, she is my daughter) and the second from MCDS student and founder Nicole Farchi-Segal. Nicole and her mother Joanna brought in a huge carload of kosher groceries. The Simcha chapter of Hadassah raised money for 12 boy’s bikes as well as MP3 players and other gifts for our teens.
The Amazing Davideen Werner
A special hug goes to our #1 mitzvah lady, Davideen Werner, for doing all the fundraising and all the shopping. Whenever a child had a special request we would ask Davideen for help and she always came back with the present. Because of the tremendous amount of time and energy that she devotes to the Food Bank and our Jewish community, JCS has nominated Davideen for Miami-Dade County’s Community Spirit Award. This award is part of the 24th Annual “In the Company of Women” Awards, which recognizes outstanding women who, through volunteerism and service, have made a positive difference in the community. Stay tuned for news about the winners in the spring!
Gifts Galore
The Florida Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce, a regular donor, also contributed 110 toys. Not only were we able to give several gifts to all our children, we provided gifts for all of the children who are clients of other JCS programs.
Paul and Sher Klein organized “Hanukkah in the Hamptons,” bringing in more toys and Tzedakah funds. They plan to keep their bin at Hamptons South and make collections for the JCS KFB a continuing project.
Many thanks to Joan Winograd and Leslee Geller from Miami Jewish Health Systems for donating the toys left over from their toy drive. This donation allowed us to refresh our stock towards the end of the holidays. The girls loved those baby dolls! Appreciation also goes to Liz Abadi, who volunteered her time to come in and organize and re-organize the toy room. Come back, Liz, we need you!
Sara Jove hosted her annual Hanukkah Party to benefit the JCS Kosher Food Bank, called “Martinis, Massage, Music and Mitzvahs” this year. What a night! She collected gift cards, sports equipment and other items geared towards teens and also raised over $1,000.
KFB Gets Spruced Up for Holidays
Our offices got a fresh coat of paint thanks to the Temple Judea Social Action Committee, led by Gary Simon. We are really starting to look great!
The Hillel Varsity Boys Basketball Team came in to help move the furniture so we could paint and we have recruited them to assist with all the work for Passover in the spring. The 3rd grade students from Hochberg Prep made paper dreidels and other items and decorated the Food Bank for the holidays. They also made beautiful wrapped packages of menorahs, dreidels and candles and delivered them so we could make sure that every family received holiday decorations. Hillel students delivered hundreds of hand-made Hanukkah greeting cards for our clients. The National Council of Jewish Women provided us with really beautiful candles. In addition, Sharon Yudewitz, their wonderful director who delivers bread from Kosherland to the Food Bank every Monday, stopped by several times with amazing sugary donuts, also supplied by Kosherland.
Special Holiday Donations
We had many special holiday items on hand this year. The Lapciuc Family made lovely baskets of food for centerpieces at their annual dinner and sent them to us the next day. And thanks to Abe Rudman, you can now see the event on You Tube!
The GMJF Pacesetter dinner featured centerpieces full of lemons, limes, grapefruits, avocados and nuts which they delivered the morning after. There is nothing like fresh
avocados to make people happy! Thanks, Lori, for always thinking of us at the
JCS FKB.
There were many more amazing surprises. Alex Radick had a “Novel Idea” and collected new and gently used books for his Mitzvah project, delivering them here for Hanukkah. Jenni Person and “Next @ 19th”collected food and gave us several cases of “Bad Jew Barbecue Sauce.” Eileen Farr contacted Royal Cup Coffee and they delivered two cases of coffee. Our amazing supporter, “The Closet,” provided money for 60 movie tickets for families and teens. Wells Fargo Bank (another Davideen connection) gave us 18 tickets for the Dolphins-Jets game on New Year’s Day and Amy Sager of Focus Features sent many DVDs, including the Twilight series, along with t-shirts, hats and posters from The Chipmunks movie.
Brothers Jack and Morris Esformes brought a palette of food from Costco and really stocked the shelves. Agi Sapir sponsored another 2,500 diapers. Dani Scheck asked guests coming to her Bat Mitzvah to make a donation to the JCS KFB. Besides collecting thousands of dollars online and by check, she educated many people about what we do here at the Food Bank. Brian Morrisson made 20 gigantic Hanukkah food baskets. Endlessly Organics’ Arden Karson has arranged for us to pick up organic produce, and we will start working with her on a continuing basis. Check out her website if you are interested in delicious organic produce. I finally got a color printer, thank you Janice, and am now making beautiful personalized cards for all occasions!
JCAT, the J’s Cultural Arts Theatre Program, asked audience members at the end of each performance of “Oliver” to support the JCS Kosher Food Bank by buying a $10 Publix gift card. They sold over $1500!
What’s in Store for the New Year
Finally, 2012 will bring the addition of hot dogs, hamburgers, mustard, catsup and other specials of the month in our new Diener Deli Department. The Dieners have made a very generous donation to provide much-needed additional food to the clients of the JCS Kosher Food Bank.
The most important thing is that the clients are happy and we are helping them, not only with food but with referrals to other JCS programs. One of my favorite clients has recently found a great job and will be leaving us after this month. We have had other success stories too and started a book called Food for Thought which consists of letters from our clients. I will quote from one letter:
“Hello! For more than 5 years I have been visiting the Kosher Food Bank. I want to say a big THANK YOU for the help and support. It’s always clean, always nice and always has a good assortment of kosher food that G-d and sponsors provide. Thank you very much for your care and service. Long Life, Kosher Food Bank!”
January 5th was my six month anniversary of working as coordinator of the JCS Kosher Food Bank. It has been a fantastic experience and I think there have been many positive changes here. Thank you to everyone in Access Services, especially to my “social work professor” Debbie Hurwitz and to Gareth and Hersh for teaching me so much and helping me with everything. It is a pleasure to work with Marie Fernandez and Rodney Thomas every day. Marie is an angel and I could not get everything accomplished without her hard work.
As my client so beautifully stated above, “Thank you very much for your care and service. Long Life, Kosher Food Bank!”
I’ll be back to you with more good news next year. Happy 2012!
Bonnie Schwartzbaum, Coordinator of JCS Kosher Food Bank