Project H.O.P.E struggles due to the economy

For the past few years, B’nai B’rith’s Project H.O.P.E. – Helping Our People Everywhere, is struggling to provide enough meals and holiday necessities for needy Jewish individuals and families.

Deanna Friedman, a co-chair for the past decade and a 20-year member of Project H.O.P.E., said the economy is most likely the reason for the organization’s difficulty to provide enough food and holiday items for underprivileged Long Islanders. “People and organizations aren’t giving the way they use to,” she said. “We have to raise our own money and it’s becoming more difficult. We’re just trying to do our best to continue

to exist.”

B’nai B’rith, an international organization that serves as the global voice for the Jewish community, first began Project H.O.P.E. 40 years ago. The organization receives names and addresses of needy people and families from Jewish social service agencies, temples and Jewish community centers across Long Island. Through fundraising, members of Project H.O.P.E. buy fresh kosher food and holiday necessities such as candles for distribution.

Twice a year on Passover and Hanukkah, Project H.O.P.E. members form an assembly line to prepackage the food and holiday items for pickup at Galil Importing Corporation’s warehouse in Syosset.

Friedman is in charge of contacting agencies to submit lists of names and addresses of people who should receive holiday packages. “These are people who either can’t afford anything for the holiday or are alone on the holiday,” she said. “They really appreciate being remembered.”

Ellen Warshall from the JCC of the Greater Five Towns Kosher Food Pantry in Woodmere has been a recipient of 50 bags of food from Project H.O.P.E. for the past five years. “We get a lot of food that way,” said Warshall, who oversees the pantry. “They are special packages so they’re different from what we typically provide. It’s an extra special something for the holiday.”

Asher J. Matahias, a Woodmere resident and president of the Five Towns Lodge 1353, a Long Island branch of B’nai B’rith, said Project H.O.P.E. helps Jewish people everywhere. “Judaism is inherently a faith of action, it’s not enough to just believe,” he said. “This is one way to do a good deed and in turn you become a better person.”

Matahias, like Friedman, thinks the economy is the primary reason donations have decreased for Project H.O.P.E. in recent years. “Contributions in general have declined,” he said. “It’s not that people don’t want to do good work, they can’t give at the regular level they’re accustomed to anymore. While we have suffered, we have to believe things will get better.”

To make a donation to B’nai B’rith’s Project H.O.P.E., send a check made out to B’nai B’rith Project Hope. Mail it to Long Island Project Hope P.O. Box 972, Syosset, NY 11791.