Pesia's Kitchen is the Righteous Crowd Org of the Week!
Pesia’s Kitchen
Ending Chronic Hunger in South Tel Aviv
Last week marked the beginning of a mourning period in the Jewish calendar known as “the three weeks” (more info here). This period, which marks the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, begins and ends with days of fasting. Inspired by these fasts, we are featuring Tel Aviv-based Pesia’s Kitchen, an organization that feeds 1,000 people a day, delivering more than ½ million pounds of food a year to those in need.
Thank you to our friends at The Good People Fund for recommending Pesia's Kitchen.
According to their website, “Pesia’s Kitchen, founded in 2011, focuses on rescuing nutritious, freshly prepared food and delivering it to those who need it most. We believe that no food should go to waste when there are so many people living in chronic hunger, specifically in poor South Tel Aviv neighborhoods.”
Gideon Ben Ami, co-founder and co-executive director, of Pesia's Kitchen (named for his grandmother who fed hungry people in Poland) wrote the following to Righteous Crowd:
"Before the coronavirus outbreak, Pesia’s Kitchen would distribute daily meals from food that was compiled from vegetables from Leket Israel (The National Food Bank in Israel) and leftovers from catering companies... [Due to a rapid increase in need from the virus, in March 2020, Pesia’s Kitchen constructed an emergency field kitchen that produces 1,500 hearty and nutritious meals every 24 hours.] Today, we are still serving the same groups of people from before, and we estimate an additional 1,000 people will be served yearly as a result of our field kitchen activities....we have been able to better cope with the fallout of more and more unemployed people who have fallen into the cycle of poverty. "
Pesia's Kitchen’s core programs include daily meals for:
Two elderly day centers (120 people, 25 Holocaust survivors)
A school for children with behavioral difficulties (80-90 students)
Low income public housing for elderly people (60 people)
An emergency shelter for addicted women active in the sex trade (16 women)
Two shelters for women and children who are victims of domestic violence (20 women, 30 children)
Ten homeless shelters (100 men)
Nine preschool programs for children of asylum seekers (450 children)
For the truly inspiring story about Gideon and Pesia's Kitchen, click here.
To learn more about Pesia's Kitchen, click here.