Mishnas Yakov was born in a small Jerusalem kitchen. A group of caring friends simply could not bear to see the suffering and poverty of some of their neighbors. They made an extra-large grocery order that first week and sent half over to a destitute family next door. From that humble beginning a few years ago, Mishnas Yakov has grown to feed over 500 destitute families in Jerusalem, offer fresh, prepared meals for needy and dysfunctional families, and offer myriad other services.
Despite its simple and unpretentious start, Mishnas Yakov is impeccably organized and professionally run. Every aspect and logistic, from its packing center, complex intake process and the clockwork reliability of its deliveries, is handled with the utmost efficiency, competency and urgency.
Remarkably, Mishnas Yakov maintains first-class professionalism and exemplary service with the support of only three staffers. (one of whom is a needy orphan). Mishnas Yakov's unbelievable and unmatched minimum overhead allows every penny raised to reach a family in need.
Mishnas Yakov is served by a host of volunteer professionals who provide advisory services, and tens of local volunteers who give of their time, energy and resources to fill every position within the organization from delivery-boy to management.
The Need:
The current economic crisis, greatly exacerbated by Israel's tenuous security situation, has had a disastrous impact on the country's economy and ultimately its citizens. Unemployment has reached epic proportions, with little relief in sight. Furthermore, the government, strapped by a declining tax base and astronomical defense expenses, is unable to provide the necessary security net for its citizens and has initiated many cuts that have, unfortunately, directly impacted the lowest socio-economic segments of Israeli society creating an ever - deepening and widening cycle of need.
The statistics speak for themselves, with one in every five children in the country going hungry and thousands of families living beneath the poverty line. Many formerly stable families were catapulted to the lowest ranks. Often the breadwinner lost their job, a family owned business collapsed, illness or simply the growing cost of living pushing them over the edge.
Jerusalem and its surrounding towns have been hard hit by the current situation. Numerous terror attacks have left many people injured and traumatized, and businesses undermined by people's fear of terror attacks on shopping districts and a major decline in tourists. The city, with one of Israel's highest poverty rates during the best of times, is struggling with many hundreds of families destitute, hungry and needy.
Mishnas Yakov works towards alleviating that suffering and offering the steady helping hand and encouragement these families need to regain their stability and work their way out of their unfortunate circumstances.
Despite the staggering statistics, at Mishnas Yakov each family is cared for individually. Every case is examined and assistance tailored to best meet the particular needs of that person or family.
Mishnas Yakov Programs:
Since its inception, Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov has expanded steadily and currently offers a range of services. The organization now assists Jerusalem's needy citizens in the following key areas:
Weekly Food Basket Distribution
Mishnas Yakov coordinates and funds every aspect of food delivery to over 400 families every week.
Mishnas Yakov maintains relationships with many of the big food supply companies and various farms and coops to purchase food products at the cheapest possible price. In addition, throughout every week volunteers collect extra foodstuffs from the more affluent neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Volunteer students sort the collected merchandise and help repack grocery products (such as pasta) that Mishnas Yakov receives in industrial size packaging.
Dedicated volunteers, working in shifts, assemble hundreds food baskets every Tuesday and packages are delivered by Wednesday night ensuring that the recipients can use the package to prepare for a fine Shabbat. Many of the packers are Yeshiva students and seminary students take time from their studies for this important task. Each basket is tailored to the needs of the recipient family, to ensure that they will get sufficient food for the week. Families with infants receive baby formulas and baby food, those with growing children receive nutritious staples that children love , and older adults, foods that will suite their changing physical needs. Each recipient family will receive:
• Canned and dry goods, sourced directly from the canneries and packagers. Local volunteers also solicit donations of shelf-stable products door-to-door. These solicited products increase the variety of foods distributed as well as keeping cost as low as possible.
• Perishables, including milk, cheeses and yogurts, and eggs. These products are packed at the last moment before deliveries are made to ensure freshness. Like the other products, perishables are bought directly from the dairies or poultry cooperatives at the lowest possible prices.
• Household supplies, including cleaning and personal hygiene products.
• Chicken, Meat and Fish are purchased in bulk and kept in deep-freeze until just before delivery.
Volunteer drivers make all the deliveries. Each driver – using his own vehicle – has a dedicated route and is encouraged to develop a relationship with the families that he serves. Drivers are trained to treat clients as valued customers rather than as charity cases and in many instances warm relationships have developed between the drivers and the clients on their routes. Furthermore, drivers serve as the “eyes and ears” of the organization, ever alert for changes in clients' needs that they might be reluctant or embarrassed to mention to the official Mishnas Yakov liaison.
Meals on Wheels
Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov runs a da ily meals-on-wheels program for families in which the primary caregiver is unable to prepare fresh, nourishing meals for the family. Through a close relationship with a Jerusalem institutional caterer, the organization is able to obtain meals at near-cost, which it delivers daily to many families. Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov volunteers deliver the hot meals throughout Jerusalem every morning in insulated, containers. This program enables sick or disabled parents to feed their families without costly domestic assistance or awkward, long-term imposition on friends and relatives.
Life-Cycle Celebrations
For a destitute family, happy occasions become yet another source of sorrow and shame. These families simply do not have the means to celebrate weddings and bar mitzvoth, births and other milestone events by even the most modest of norms. Mishnas Yakov offers these families at-cost catering or sponsorship for their life-cycle related celebrations. As with all of Mishnas Yakov's programs this allows the family to maintain their dignity and celebrate with joy.
Holiday Provisions
Holidays, too, are difficult for many underprivileged families. Instead of representing a time for celebration and family togetherness, these families suffer the shame of doing without while everyone else celebrates. Moreover, the foods special to each holiday and rigorous kashrut requirements for Passover make these purchases even more costly. Passover, in particular, poses a financial challenge even for those families that manage on their own throughout the year.
Mishnas Yakov organizes a massive food distribution before Passover. All Passover essentials are distributed free of charge to all the families Mishnas Yakov assists throughout the year as well as 1000 additional families who need this help to celebrate the holiday. Meat, Matzot, wine, fish, sugar, oil, dairy products and eggs are but a few of the expensive products distributed each year at Passover.
Clothing
While Jerusalem's climate is relatively temperate, many residents and schools are poorly heated and damp. In winter months, warm coats and sweaters are essential, as are sturdy shoes and boots.
Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov , in keeping with its policy of treating its clients with the respect that all people deserve, feels that it is of great psychological importance for the disadvantaged to be able to enter a store and select the clothing they prefer – just like everyone else . In addition, because its clients' families tend to have many children, this policy has a pragmatic advantage as well – new clothes hold up well and can be handed down to successive siblings.
To enable this, Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov has entered agreements with a number of Jerusalem clothing and shoe stores. These stores honor free vouchers distributed by the organization and provide clothing and shoes for holders of these vouchers. Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov then pays for the clothing at a considerable discount.
Medical Care
Illness and disability are closely associated with poverty. Indeed, it is often the underlying or contributing cause. When a working parent becomes unable to work because of illness or injury, often the entire family quickly suffers. Similarly, a sick child or elderly parent may require a family member's full-time attention, making work impossible.
The high cost of medication, surgery and medical supplies – even in Israel, where basic medical service is socialized – is a crushing burden for poor and working-class families, especially in cases of serious illness where private or supplementary care is called for.
Mishnas Yakov provides funding for specific medication, medical supplies and surgery that are not covered by the socialized health service. In addition, Mishnas Yakov delivers hot meals to families burdened by an ill or disabled family member for the duration of acute need.
Furnishings
Before the winter, Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov distributes new blankets to needy Jerusalem families.
In addition, the organization maintains a loan service for folding beds, cribs, tables and chairs. These items, which are carefully maintained in like-new condition, are available for short-term loan to clients to enable families with minimal furnishings to host guests for family celebrations or holidays.
The Mishnas Yakov “Adopt-a-Family” Program
Through the Adopt-a-Family program compassionate individuals from around the world can reach out to specific families in need and help us improve their quality of life. Donors choose a family and commit to provide fixed, monthly support for that family (or families) for an agreed upon period (usually 12-24 months at a time). In some cases donors may wish to sponsor specific medical, loan, schooling or other needs as well. Mishnas Yakov provides the mechanism for authenticating the family's needs, ensuring the most cost-effective acquisition of those items the family requires and the honorable delivery of the material and financial support.
Through this program, Mishnas Yakov employ's its know-how and relationships to enable others to give to and assist the needy of Jerusalem.
Growth Plan
Ezra V'Chesed Mishnas Yakov , witnesses, first hand, the growing need in Jerusalem and has the know-how to move quickly to meet those needs, however the organization requires additional infrastructure and funding to effectively support and assist additional families and to offer expanded services. Mishnas Yakov is acutely aware that a family assisted before it falls victim to deep financial crisis, is a family more likely to recover. Mishnas Yakov actively seeks potential donations as well as cooperation with other like-minded organizations in an effort to offer assistance to every needy family.
Specifically, in 2005 Mishnas Yakov is actively seeking donors for the purchase of a van which will be used to collect donated foodstuffs and widen the geographic distribution reach to more Jerusalem suburbs.
