Family Table marks three decades of alleviating hunger
From farm to holiday table
WHERE DOES FAMILY TABLE’S FOOD COME FROM?
SCHOOL GROUPS PITCH IN AT FAMILY TABLE
Mental health support
Accessing government benefits
Parenting workshops
Support for people with disabilities
Finding housing
Pro bono legal services
Interest-free loans
Combatting isolation
So much about our world has changed since the Jewish community opened Family Table three decades ago, long before it became New England’s largest kosher food pantry. Today Family Table provides fresh, nutritious food and a caring connection to more than 1,600 people annually. And, as a foundational program of Jewish Family & Children’s Service, Family Table provides access to a wide array of services.
When someone becomes a Family Table client, they’re an enrolled member of the JF&CS family. They may be dealing with a whole constellation of challenges: from navigating the complexities of aging or parenthood, to coping with trauma, to finding a reliable housing situation and making ends meet. And JF&CS is here to help. The key to our work is addressing the many complex realities of life under one roof.
Grounded in Jewish values of caring and social justice, JF&CS is constantly evolving to meet changing community needs. We are a 150-year-old organization, and we are consistently recognized as social service innovators. And we have only been able to carry out this work because of you, our dedicated volunteers, donors, and community partners. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your shared commitment to improving lives. jfcsboston.org/Give
What does hunger look like? At JF&CS Family Table, we know there are many faces of hunger. It is the face of a single mother working two jobs, creased with worry because she is uncertain on any given day whether she can provide three healthy meals for her children. It is the father of three who also cares for his wife who is disabled and cannot work outside the home. And it is the older couple who may appear financially comfortable, but who skip meals during the month because their very limited income does not stretch far enough to cover food, housing, and other necessities such as medicine.
This summer, Family Table completed a comprehensive survey of our clients (more than 650 households!). Our goal was to understand how well we are helping those we provide food for each month, but we also wanted to understand in a deeper way how food insecurity affects peoples’ daily lives. We asked such things as: How often do you skip or reduce the size of your meals because there isn’t enough money for food? How often does the food you buy just not last, and you don’t have any money to buy more? And how often are you unable to afford to eat balanced meals?
What we heard was sobering but not surprising. Our clients told us that food insecurity is a daily reality and that the food they receive each month from Family Table is a lifeline—one that helps bridge the gap between having access to nutritious food on a regular basis and not being able to do so. They also shared heartfelt gratitude for JF&CS, for Family Table staff, and for the volunteers who bring groceries and a caring Jewish connection to their door each month.
As one person said, “Family Table helps us feel Jewish. Also, I don’t feel lonely knowing there are people who care for me.”
As Family Table marks its thirtieth year of providing food for those in our community in need, I thank you for your continued support for Family Table and our shared mission of making hunger a thing of the past.
L’shanah tova tikatevu, Bernice Behar, Family Table Program DirectorA timeline of Family Table’s history of giving.
Following an apple from the farm to a Rosh Hashanah meal shows the impact of Family Table.
Did you ever wonder where Family Table gets its food? See how the Jewish community comes together to provide food through Family Table.
These three student groups inpsire us with their volunteer work.
Ride for Food, Lottor Award & more.
1430 Main Street | Waltham, MA 02451 (781) 647-JFCS (5327) jfcsboston.org | info@jfcsboston.org
The mission of Family Table is to end hunger in the Greater Boston Jewish community while serving people who need our assistance regardless of religious affiliation.
Family Table fulfills its mission by providing kosher food, creating a caring Jewish connection, and empowering people to make healthy eating a part of their daily lives.
Gail Schulman
Chief Executive Officer
Meredith Joy
Director, Center for Basic Needs Assistance
Bernice Behar
Family Table Program Director
Karen Silverman
Chief Advancement Officer
Sarah Failla
Director of Marketing & Communications
Sarah Thomas
Designer & Contributor
Family Table opens at Temple Ohabei Shalom, Brookline, as a collaborative effort between JF&CS, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Hillel Council, and the Synagogue Council of Massachusetts. Family Table serves 21 families in its first month and has 12 food collection sites.
Family Table moves to its current location in Waltham. It now serves 150 families and has 47 collection sites. Family Table also joins the Greater Boston Food Bank, greatly expanding its ability to serve more people.
JF&CS Family Table assumes operation of the JFS North Shore Kosher Food Pantry serving approximately 30 families in 22 communities on the North Shore. Across both programs, Family Table serves more than 300 families each month and has 68 collection sites and over 200 volunteers each month.
Family Table moves to Congregation
Kehillith Israel, Brookline. The program grows, serving 6o families each month with 30 collection sites and 100 volunteers.
The Hunger Initiative is launched to enhance the nutritional quality of the food provided to Family Table’s 180 recipient families. A goal of the initiative is to provide more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Family Table Marketplace opens. Clients who have transportation can visit the pantry and choose their own groceries.
As JF&CS Family Table celebrates its 30th anniversary, we look back on a history of philanthropy and family
In 1993, a new food pantry called Family Table opened at Temple Ohabei Shalom, Brookline. Over the past 30 years, generations of children have grown up volunteering at Family Table, learning the value of helping others in need. Amy Hearne, who has been a Family Table volunteer since its inception, recently reflected that the program has changed so much over the years but has maintained its core values.
Later this year, Family Table’s cold storage space is renovated. The installation of a walk-in freezer and refrigeration unit more than doubles Family Table’s cold storage capacity, which is critical to serving over 340 families every month with fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, cheese and other nutritious perishable foods.
In the face of the COVID-19 health crisis, the program moves all distributions outdoors and launches a new emergency delivery program in collaboration with the Massachusetts Contact Tracing Collaborative. Over the three years of the health emergency, Family Table delivers emergency groceries to more than 900 families in need.
2021
To give clients greater flexibility and to ensure that the program can accommodate more clients into the future, Family Table Marketplace adopts a weekly schedule.
2023
As demand continues to grow, Family Table completes a major expansion to build capacity. The expansion includes new space for dry goods storage and distribution and a tripling of freezer and refrigerator space. The program now has 70 collection sites and 1,200 volunteers each month. Serving more than 400 households each month, Family Table opens a new location at Temple B’nai Tikvah in Canton, enabling us to reach more clients and engage more volunteers.
Family Table currently provides nutritious food, Jewish holiday items and a caring Jewish connection to more than 570 families every month.
“It started literally in a closet! Now there are three sites and a Marketplace program, but the feel remains the same,” Hearne said. “What continues to make Family Table unique and special is how clients are treated with respect and compassion.”
For many Jewish families, Rosh Hashanah is not complete without the sweetness of apples dipped in honey.
The crisp, sharp, and floral flavor of the apple is inextricably bound up with the rituals and meaning of Rosh Hashanah, as the symbolic sweet carries with it hopes for a “shanah tovah,” or good new year.
As families prepare for their own Rosh Hashanah feasts, Family Table is stocked with pantry staples and the produce of the season. Dedicated volunteers are busy making deliveries to people experiencing food insecurity in our community. As we follow the journey of an apple here at Family Table, we reflect on the rich tapestry of community and giving that makes Family Table work.
The journey of a Family Table apple starts at the orchard. Family Table, in its drive to provide the highest quality fresh, local produce, has cultivated relationships with organizations like the Greater Boston Food Bank as well as orchards, farmers, and growers via the Boston Area Gleaners. The latter is an organization that works with food producers to conduct a second harvest after the first commercial harvest. They acquire food that would otherwise go to waste, bringing it instead to food pantries.
“When I began working with the (Boston Area) Gleaners, the first week I volunteered, I picked greens out in the field. Then that weekend, I went to Family Table in Waltham and there were the greens I had just picked, waiting to be taken home,” said Ann Hartstein, longtime Family Table donor and volunteer. “It’s thrilling to have a hand in that system and in getting food to people. It’s what I love about doing what I do.”
The next stop for our apple is the Family Table headquarters in Waltham. From here it might be placed on a truck bound for Family Table in Canton or Marblehead. All three of our locations offer both onsite Marketplace shopping and home delivery for clients unable to visit the pantry. Thanks to donations and efforts by dedicated volunteers, these facilities are prepared to help clients in need.
“One thing that’s special about Family Table is the focus we have on nutritious food like fresh produce,” said Bernice Behar, Family Table director. “When we did our expansion, we tripled the size of our cold storage. It gives us the ability to accept new clients and serve their needs way into the future.”
In addition to supplying produce like our apple, Family Table offers recipes to help clients make the most of their groceries.
“It’s one way we remain focused on serving the nutritional needs of our clients,” Behar said.
Once the apple is destined for Marketplace or home delivery, the only remaining step is to get it onto the tables of clients— and volunteers play the main role here too. Volunteers who make deliveries and help at Marketplace ensure that items make their way to clients as easily as possible, ensuring dignity, service, and a human touch that resonates throughout the generations.
“What I like about volunteering with Family Table is that when I started doing this with my kids, in contrast to a lot of other community service,
we were actually delivering things right to the people,” said JF&CS board member, donor, and longtime volunteer David Goldstone. “You get to really meet people, and you understand your impact and where it’s going.”
Once volunteers like Goldstone and his family drop off the apple, it’s time for the meal— when it will be dipped in honey, emblematic of the sweetness that comes when communites band together to take care of one another in times of need.
The simple answer is that most of our food comes from four main sources: Jewish community food collections, the Greater Boston Food Bank, purchases that we make with our annual budget, and in-kind product that we receive from several
nonprofit organizations. Now, a little more detail on each of those buckets… Jewish Community More than 60% of the food Family Table distributes comes from the Jewish community. Considering that last year we provided about $735,000 worth of food, that tells you how
important this source of support is for Family Table! Family Table works with more than 70 different Jewish collection sites. Most are synagogues, but our partners also include other Jewish institutions like day schools and JCCs. Those food collections, when combined with designated funding from some generous families, comprise the largest share of the food we provide.
Family Table is a member agency of the Greater Boston Food Bank, which enables us to order food in bulk from them. This includes fresh produce and staples. Some items are free, and some are low cost. The GBFB currently provides about 20% of our food.
Monetary donations are critical to our success. We raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from generous donors to run Family Table. These donations enable us to purchase items such as Jewish holiday foods, challah, chicken, and frozen vegetables to supplement what we receive from our collection sites, and to fund our staff and facilities costs.
Family Table works with three amazing nonprofits that provide us with some critical items. Boston Area Gleaners brings us a wonderful assortment of farm fresh produce during the growing season, Hope and Comfort provides our clients with personal hygiene items, and Food Link supplements our offering with bread products. These contributions are a smaller but very meaningful part of what we are able to provide for our clients each month.
Recently, we have struggled to obtain some of the food items that our clients count on each month, including staples like kosher soup and whole grain crackers. We are providing food for more people each month and as our need grows, increased support from the Jewish community is essential.
If you are connected to one of the collection sites listed on the back page, please contribute to
its monthly collection. We also gratefully accept donations of food and other essentials from our Amazon wish list, as well as financial contributions. Visit jfcsboston.org/ support-family-table or scan the QR code to donate.
Thank you for joining our collective effort to end hunger in the Jewish community and beyond!
We are always so grateful that many people volunteer regularly at Family Table, but we especially appreciate the youthful energy of some special student groups who join us each month.
It is wonderful to witness these kids and young adults as they learn to work independently, and they begin to see how their efforts are an important part of making change in the world.
In 2014, Temple Sinai in Brookline began organizing a group of middle and high school students to work at our Waltham distributions. Reticent at first, the kids quickly settled in, working with the adults around them stocking shelves, carrying bags, and doing other tasks jobs in the pantry. They loved it so much that eventually, several now 17-year-olds began volunteering independently, including one student who was so impacted by his experience that he recently asked to volunteer when he is home from college.
Each month, in preparation for our distributions in Marblehead and Canton, we drive a truckload of food to each location. It is incredibly helpful that we can count on the strength and energy of a group of students to unload thousands of pounds of food from the trucks and load it onto shelves and into cold storage in each location.
Each year since 2016, a group of 7th and 8th graders from the Epstein Hillel School in Marblehead have joined us one day every month. As our North Shore program at Temple Sinai in Marblehead has expanded greatly over the past several years, we have really counted on them to make sure our pantry is
stocked and ready to go for our Sunday distribution.
And at our location at Temple B’nai Tikvah in Canton, a group of 4th- and 5th-grade students who are part of the Striar Hebrew Academy Student Council have been helping unload our truck since 2017. They also bring donations from their school, which helps support the pantry each month.
The partnerships we have with each of these schools are invaluable. We count on the work that the kids do, and we hope that in return they are learning the value of helping those in need in our community.
Susan uses her organizational skills and attention to detail to create driving assignments, matching up volunteers and clients for all of our distributions. When not working, Susan can often be found on a tennis court or spending time in the woods with her dog, Nacho.
Ann Hartstein was selected out of more than 2,000 volunteers to receive this year’s Simone Lottor Exceptional Service Award. Ann has been a regular volunteer at both our Waltham and South Area distributions for many years. She is also a member of the Center for Basic Needs Assistance and the Services for Older Adults advisory committees. “At JF&CS I have found volunteer work that is based on Jewish values, addresses serious needs of real people in my community and is fully appreciated by the organization itself,” Hartstein said when accepting the award.
JF&CS Family Table is excited to participate once again in the Ride for Food on October 1, 2023. This annual hunger-relief fundraiser organized by Three Squares New England is our biggest fundraiser of the year. This year we hope to raise more than the $78,000 that we raised last year—all funds raised by our team go to Family Table and will enable us to purchase food for our pantry in the coming year.
We are looking for people to join our team to cycle, walk, or support us virtually. Please join our team or donate to support Family Table today!
For more information, or to register or donate, visit bit.ly/JFCSRFF23
We are deeply grateful to the many synagogues, schools, and JCCs for their commitment to Family Table. We also want to thank the hundreds of individuals and families who support Family Table throughout the year. Altogether, the Jewish community provides more than 60% of the food we distribute. We are especially thankful to the dedicated Site Coordinators (Family Table liaisons) of these communities who spearhead donation efforts, recruit volunteers, and keep the Family Table mission in focus.
Agudas Achim-Ezrath Israel
Ahavath Torah Congregation
Beit Sasson, the Sephardic
Congregation of Newton
Beth Abraham Sephardic
Congregation of New England
Beth El Temple Center
Beth Menachem Chabad
B’nai Tikvah South Area
Jewish Congregation
Chabad of Chestnut Hill
Congregation Beth El, Sudbury
Congregation Beth El-Atereth Israel
Congregation Beth Elohim
Congregation Beth Shalom of the Blue Hills
Congregation B’nai Torah, Sudbury
Congregation Eitz Chayim
Congregation Etz Chaim
Congregation Kehillath Israel
Congregation Kerem Shalom
Congregation Mishkan Tefila
Congregation Or Atid, Wayland
Congregation Shaarei Tefillah
Congregation Shirat Hayam
Congregation Sons of Israel
Epstein Hillel School
Gann Academy
Harvard Hillel
JCC of Greater Boston, Newton
JCCNS
JCDS
Maimonides School
Minyan Ma’or
Minyan Shaleym
NewBridge on the Charles NSJCC
Rashi School
Solomon Schechter Day School
Striar Hebrew Academy
Temple Aliyah
Temple Beth Avodah
Temple Beth David of the South Shore
Temple Beth David, Westwood
Temple Beth Elohim
Temple Beth Emunah
Temple Beth Israel
Temple Beth Shalom, Cambridge
Temple Beth Shalom, Melrose
Temple Beth Shalom, Needham
Temple Beth Zion
Temple B’nai Abraham
Temple B’nai Brith
Temple Chayai Shalom
Temple Emanu-El
Temple Emanuel, Newton
Temple Emeth
Temple Emunah, Lexington
Temple Hillel B’nai Torah
Temple Isaiah
Temple Israel of Natick
Temple Israel of Sharon
Temple Israel, Boston
Temple Ner Tamid
Temple Ohabei Shalom
Temple Reyim
Temple Shalom Emeth
Temple Shalom of Medford
Temple Shalom, Newton
Temple Shir Tikva, Wayland
Temple Shir Tikvah, Winchester
Temple Sinai, Brookline
Temple Sinai, Marblehead
Temple Sinai, Sharon
Temple Tifereth Shalom
The Boston Synagogue
Walnut Street Minyan
Young Israel of Brookline
Young Israel of Sharon
Bilezikian Foundation
Botwinick-Wolfensohn Foundation
Brookline Community Foundation
Bushrod H. Campbell and Adah F. Hall Charity Fund
Combined Jewish Philanthropies
Dennis Schuman Charitable Foundation
Digital Federal Credit Union
Emergency Food and Shelter National Board Program Foundation for Metrowest
Keel Foundation
Lawrence J. and Anne Rubenstein Charitable Foundation
Marblehead Female Humane Society
Perpetual Benevolent Fund
Project Bread—The Walk for Hunger
RTI
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Sol Goldman Charitable Trust
Boston Area Gleaners
David Greenfield Photography
Food Link
Greater Boston Food Bank
Hope and Comfort
Trader Joe’s Zucker Foods