Synagogues team with food banks for holiday drive

In San Francisco an estimated 90,000 people go to bed hungry each night -- an additional 60,000 are at risk.

Among them are children, seniors, low-income families, welfare recipients, those infected with HIV/AIDS and the homeless.

The affliction extends beyond San Francisco. In Alameda County, for instance, an estimated 151,000 residents live in poverty. Forty percent of those served by the Alameda County Food Bank are children.

The Jewish community can help feed the hungry year-round, but the approaching High Holy Days are a good time to start, said Rena Shachar, director of the Bay Area Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.

"High Holy Day time is the central point of reflection for Jews around the world," she said. "Tikkun olam [healing the world] is essential."

With this in mind, COEJL and local food banks have teamed up for the second time for a collaborative High Holiday Food Drive, to be held through Sept. 27.

Collection barrels for the San Francisco Food Bank, the Alameda County Community Food Bank and the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano are located at participating synagogues throughout the Bay Area. Donations of non-perishable, nutritious items such as canned beans, tuna, vegetables and fruits, as well as infant formula, baby food, powdered milk and pasta are suggested.

The Walter and Elise Haas Fund will donate $1 to the food banks for every two pounds of food collected up to 19,000 or $9,500, as it did last year. The money, along with the collected food, will help the banks to fulfill their missions to reduce food waste, feed the hungry, and raise awareness of issues related to food and hunger.

COEJL, founded in 1993 to promote environmental education, scholarship, advocacy and action in the American Jewish community, considers the food drive a perfect marriage of the environmental and social justice components of healing the world.

"Many only see the social justice aspects of tikkun olam," said Shachar. "But not wasting or destroying food is also a way of doing tikkun olam."

To spread the word about the food drive, COEJL is again developing a brochure for area rabbis detailing the interconnection between feeding the hungry and Jewish ideals. Shachar hopes the brochure will encourage more synagogues to participate and also inspire sermons on the connection between the environment and Jewish ideals.

The brochures seemed to be effective. Before teaming up with COEJL, the Alameda Food Bank held High Holy Day food drives. But with COEJL's help, last year's drive saw an increase of 1,500 pounds, according to food drive coordinator Sally Moyce.

Located in Oakland, the Alameda Food Bank collected more than 12 million pounds of food over the last fiscal year, working with a network of hunger relief agencies to provide about 800,000 meals to the hungry each month.

"The food drive is just part of what we do throughout the year," said Moyce, "but it helps us a lot because fall is normally a quieter time of the year for us."

Although the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano has held High Holy Day food drives in the past, this is the first year it has worked with COEJL.

The food bank, with locations in both Concord and Fairfield, distributes 540,000 pounds of food a month, serving 49,000 people a month in Contra Costa County and 28,000 in Solano County.

The San Francisco Food Bank, meanwhile, collects more than 15 million pounds a year and provides around 33,000 meals a day.

Jiffer Bourguignon, special events assistant for the San Francisco Food Bank, said that the High Holy Day drive is one of the organization's most successful. During last year's drive, she said, the bank collected 15,000 pounds -- this year the aim is for 20,000.

Bourguignon is convinced that the 20,000-pound goal is attainable because the mission of feeding the hungry relates directly to Jewish life.

"The Jewish New Year is a time of atonement, of taking stock of where you are," she said. "The spiritual values that the High Holy Days focus on really tie in with sharing with people in need."

To find out if your synagogue is participating in the food drive, contact your local food bank.