Summer challenges increase demand at Cedarhurst kosher food pantry

With people away on vacation or at home relaxing, the summer months are difficult for facilities that collect and distribute food to those in need.

The Marion & Aaron Gural JCC’s SHOP (Sustenance, Hope, Opportunities, Place), in Cedarhurst, which operates the Rina Shkolnik Kosher Food Pantry, is one of those facilities that are affected by a drop in donations.

“Typically, the SHOP is quieter over the summer months due to families going away or working at summer camps,” Rivkah Halpern, its program director, said. “This summer, clients came to us saying they lost their jobs in the Five Towns community, creating a new influx of people.”

The increase in food insecurity — a lack of access to sufficient food, or food of adequate quality, to meet basic needs — only boosts the need for donations.

The SHOP partners with Gourmet Glatt, Costco and local synagogues to help bring in donations for the Shkolnik pantry. It also recently signed a contract with New Horizons Counseling Center, a mental health agency with offices in Valley Stream and across Long Island.

“The agency sent over a tremendous amounts of referrals to us, because they have a huge client population that is in need of food and gets the bare minimum for food stamps,” Halpern said of New Horizons. “For summer, we’ve been really inundated, and this summer we’ve seen at least a 10 percent increase in what we normally see for the summer. It’s usually a bit quieter for us.”

In June, the SHOP received 800 pounds of food, valued at $2,200, from Young Israel of Woodmere, Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, the Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Centre, the Jewish Center of Atlantic Beach, and Irving Place Minyan, in Woodmere.

“Our shul supports the local JCC food pantry because it aligns with our commitment to community service and Jewish values such as tzedakah (charity) and chesed (kindness),” Raizy Faska, executive administrative assistant of Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, said wrote in an email. “By partnering with the JCC, we strengthen our communal bonds and ensure that those in need have access to food. This collaboration allows us to actively contribute to the well-being of our neighbors, embodying our faith’s principles in a meaningful and impactful way.”

“We have a monthly food drive called ‘Stock the SHOP’ where we try to get some of the local temples involved,” Halpern said. “We gave them lists of our most-needed items.”

Community members can drop off donations, work with a local temple or scan a QR code for an Amazon list and have the items sent directly to the SHOP, she said, adding, “We actually got very, very lucky for the month of July with the Amazon wish list of most-needed items here.”

July’s food donations weighed in at 1,000 pounds and were valued at over $3,000, thanks to the help of Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst and Young Israel of Woodmere.

In August, the effort has begun to promote and collect items in need for Rosh Hashana, to make holiday packages. The items needed include egg noodles, honey, farfel, kasha and matzo ball soup mix in addition to everyday items.

“We continue to see an increase in clients, so we’re trying to keep the shelves full this upcoming holiday season,” Halpern said.

The key to the SHOP’s success is the volunteers, who sort, shelve, check donations in, unload deliveries, bring donations from stores and temples, organize and deliver food, call clients, pack orders and help shoppers, Laurie Brofsky, volunteer services manager at the Gural JCC, said.

“We had a total of 51 volunteers this July engaged in helping the SHOP in a variety of ways to combat food insecurity in our community,” Brofsky said.

The volunteers — the largest crew for any of the Gural JCC’s programs — range in age from 15 to nearly 90. In the summer, many are high school and college students looking to get volunteer hours in before school starts, Brofsky said.

“I look through applications and screen people to see where they’d be a good fit, depending on their skills and preferences,” she said. “I match the volunteer’s skill with our needs.”