An essential provider for needy families in Netanya’s Neot Hashaked neighborhood

For the past eight years, Hand in Hand Food Pantry has provided food parcels for needy families in the Neot Shaked neighborhood of Netanya. These baskets of non-perishable items - rice, oil, legumes, flour, sugar, coffee, tea - enable families to use their limited resources to purchase the perishable foods they require.

For Pesach and Rosh Hashanah we have been fortunate to receive additional funds from two of our very loyal supporters, thus enabling us to include more families and to add special holiday foods to the parcels. For the holidays we also do a food drive at the retirement homes of Protea Village in Tel Mond, Bayit B’Kfar in Bitan Aharon and Mediterranean Towers in Nordiya. Our special thanks to all the residents who contribute items to our pantry, not only on the holidays but throughout the year. We appreciate their staunch support.

We have also been blessed with an anonymous donor who for the past two years has sponsored the Pesach Seder for over 250 residents of the Neot Shaked neighborhood - families, single parents, lone soldiers and those who would otherwise not be able to have a Seder.  This is held in the community center where the food parcels are packed and distributed. Avi Faraj, the director of the center, is devoted to improving the lives of all those in his community.

Hand in Hand Food Pantry also provides lunches for two groups of first grade children who are considered at risk of not succeeding in school.  They come to the center four days a week after school and receive a nourishing hot lunch, often their only meal of the day.  This program would not be possible without our providing lunch as they stay at the center until late afternoon.  After the meal, a teacher helps them individually with school homework.  There are also a variety of enrichment activities.  Follow-up observations of the children who were in this program in previous years have shown excellent results - the difference between a child feeling discouraged or having a wonderful feeling of success.

Also receiving help from our project is a group of children identified by a school principal as being in need of food parcels.  Within the limits of our resources we try to respond to this kind of special request.

Our devoted team of volunteers comes to pack the food into containers.  They are the ones who help make it all possible. They good naturedly lift and shlep and fill 50 containers every month.

Our annual fundraiser sponsored by Gil Shohat and the Sharon Hotel in Herzliya Pituach, and organized by Nelly Perry, was held in March and was, as always, a huge success.

Without the help of our loyal friends we could not continue in our efforts to feed the needy. Thank you all for your generosity; we look forward to your continued support in the future.

Committee: Hadassah Birnbaum, Marian Burck, Shiphra Davis, Rika Meyerowitz.