Try completing a day at work or school without eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner; calling such a day “difficult” is an understatement. Yet, ONE IN SIX children in Georgia do not have enough to eat each day.* Still, these kids continue to go to school, do their homework, and try to get an education that will lead to a bright future. While public schools provide free and reduced breakfast and lunches for families who would otherwise not be able to afford to feed their children, on the weekends, without any school to attend, these kids go without. This is where synagogues, churches, and local nonprofits must step in to fill the gap.
Every Sunday, thanks to the visionary leadership of two TE members, Julie and David Weiser, Temple Emanu-El packs 65 backpacks for children as a part of the Backpack Buddies Program. These backpacks, filled with shelf-stable, nutrition-rich food, provide SIXTY-FIVE children with food for the weekend. These are not children who live hours and hours away, these are children right here in our neighborhood: Chestnut Elementary, Peachtree Middle School, and Spalding Drive Elementary.
I need your help to pack these backpacks to feed hungry children in our neighborhood.
The legendary 12th century rabbi, Moses Maimonides, wrote in his code of Jewish laws, “If a person, whom you do not recognize, says, ‘I am hungry. Please, feed me.’ You do not check into their background to determine whether they are an imposter; rather, you feed them immediately.”**
Contact me or Julie Weiser if you have any questions. If you’re ready to sign up now, click HERE to pick a date to pack bags or deliver bags.
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Max
* Gundersen, C., A. Dewey, E. Engelhard, M. Strayer & L. Lapinski. Map the Meal Gap 2020: A Report on County and Congressional District Food Insecurity and County Food Cost in the United States in 2018. Feeding America, 2020
**Mishneh Torah, Laws of Gifts to the Poor 7:6
