High holiday hunger project a record-breaker at Temple Judea

The Island Now
Pictured from left to right: Jean Kelly, Alicia Munves, Rita Marcus, Rob Kammerer. (Photo provided by Temple Judea.)

A record amount of food was collected by the congregants of Temple Judea of Manhasset who participated in the High Holidays Hunger Project.

On Rosh Hashanah, congregants were asked to take home and fill grocery bags donated by Key Foods, and to return them when they arrived for Yom Kippur services the following week. The instructions were to fill the bags with non-perishable and nutritious foods.

The recipient of the foods is the Interfaith Nutrition Network (INN), which provided a double-size van for the collection.

On Yom Kippur as cars came up the Temple driveway on the way to services, bags were dropped off and placed in the van. In a short time, the large van was filled almost to overflowing.

The executive director of INN, Jean Kelly as well as her husband Robert Kammerer, who is a board of directors member, were on hand to help with the loading of the van.

The response to this annual event, which is a project of the Social Action Committee chaired by Alicia Munves and Rita Marcus, was astonishing. Both co-chairs agreed that this was the best result in all the years they have run the event.

As a follow-up, when congregant Nancy Fadem went to the INN three days later to make a clothing donation, she was led to their pantry which that morning had been “almost empty,” and was shown a room filled with shelves of the donations of food from Temple Judea’s High Holidays Hunger project.

 

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