On Sunday, as part The Jewish Federation’s Fed Up with Hunger Purim events, Jewish volunteers delivered food, toiletries, and other care essentials to people in need all over Los Angeles in the Purim mitzvah of matanot l’evyonim (giving gifts to the poor).

A group of volunteers from Federation’s Young Entertainment Division (some of whom helped organize the Ghostbusters JFS/SOVA benefit screening at Hollywood Forever during Sukkot) and their friends joined me to cook a meal for 60 residents of Proyecto Pastoral’s Guadalupe Homeless Project, the only men’s shelter in East Los Angeles (recipes below).

Even before the cooking started, the volunteers spent the earlier part of the afternoon buying all of the ingredients for our menu.  Sara Reich, who did the yeoman’s job of coordinating all of the volunteers and the food procurement, bought 35+ pounds of chicken.  Jeannine Hamaoui cleared out the produce departments of Vons and Albertsons to get the 30 bunches of Swiss Chard that we needed.  Rachel Fleischer brought enough chicken stock to fill a large kiddie pool. Read more »

Teen venture philanthropy: who would have thought something like that existed?  Temple Emanuel’s Money and Teens Creating Hope (MATCH) program is proving cynics wrong by educating and encouraging teenage congregants to participate in charitable giving.  This year, in solidarity up with Fed Up With Hunger, MATCH decided to support the fight against hunger in Los Angeles.

MATCH invited some of us on the Fed Up With Hunger team to  talk with teens about the issue and help guide their giving.  We wanted to do more than just talk, so we devised a hands-on, interactive workshop called “Who’s Hungry in LA?”  The workshop confronts participants with six different situations in which an individual or family cannot afford their weekly groceries.  The challenge is to figure out how to leverage a limited income and available support services  to get enough to eat. 

The workshop showed the teens how difficult it to secure a week’s worth of food on a shoestring budget.   I knew we had hit home when several of them stuck around after the workshop to find out about how they could become personally involved with Fed Up With Hunger.   Perhaps they were “fed up” themselves after seeing how maddeningly difficult it can be just to get enough nutritious food for a week.  As Sartre was wont to say, “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”  Good thing is, hunger is just the sort of existential plight that we can do something about.

If you’re interested in using our “Who’s Hungry in LA?” workshop materials for a class, event, or meeting, please contact us at FedUpWithHunger@JewishLA.org.

Join us this Thursday, September 17, for JDub’s kickoff event to Rosh Hashanah: Hidden Melodies Revealed by The Sway Machinery. Part ritual, part rock concert – it’s sure to be a feel-good time. Best of all, it’s FREE!

JFedLA will be there raising awareness for Fed Up With Hunger, the community-wide initiative to end hunger in Los Angeles. We’ll be handing out new Fed Up reusable shopping bags, which are so sleek, they’ll even accessorize a suit! Make sure you get one.

Details

Thursday, September 17th, 2009
The Historic Piness Auditorium
Wilshire Boulevard Temple
3663 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, 90010

Schedule

8:00PM Open bar reception, including wines from Wente Vineyards, will be held in the courtyard of the temple.
9:00PM Show
Free Admission!
Free Parking on a first come, first serve basis + Pay lot across the street from the temple.

RSVP Info

Email your full name and # in your party to info@jdubrecords.org, with LA HMR in the subject line.

A twenty-fifth anniversary screening of the Bill Murray classic Ghostbusters will be held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to benefit the Federation’s Fed Up With Hunger initiative.

Details

Sunday, October 11th
Gates open at 6:00 pm
Movie starts at 7:30 pm
Admission = 5 cans of food per person

6000 Santa Monica Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90038
Street parking is available

Get together some friends and a picnic dinner (alcohol is okay), spread out on the cemetery lawn, and join the movement to end hunger in Los Angeles. Low-seating folding chairs (no tall chairs) and blankets are a good idea, too. Reservations are not required, but seating is first come – first serve, so be sure to get there early as the best spots fill up fast!

Debra Messing is Fed Up With Hunger. We hope you are too.

Get involved and Give Your Life Meaning.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is now sporting a Fed Up With Hunger tote. And so can you! Our little black bags will be distributed at upcoming events until we run out. So come out early and often in order to claim your stake in the campaign.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (left) with Board Member Neil Salowitz of our partner organization, MAZON.

Some Fed-staff and Hunger Committee volunteers got together at SOVA recently to sort food and pack holiday gift bags.