Project Spotlight: Pantry Packers

The Fellowship  |  June 7, 2016

Yael Eckstein volunteering at a pantry.
Project Spotlight: Pantry Packers

The Fellowship has partnered with Pantry Packers, a nonprofit food packaging facility in Jerusalem that delivers food crates to the neediest Israeli families and elderly citizens. Pantry Packers relies on the help of volunteers to keep their organization running. They offer volunteers a unique opportunity for hands-on work that truly feed the neediest of people in the Holy Land.

Because The Fellowship has now partnered with Pantry Packers, we are excited to announce that we offer tour groups of up to 50 people the Pantry Packers experience that lasts about 90 minutes. So if you are planning a trip to Israel soon, and are interested in signing up to volunteer, please contact us today.

The Volunteer Experience

When the volunteers arrive, they watch a 5-minute orientation video featuring Yael Eckstein talking about the project and Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein talking about The Fellowship‘s many lifesaving programs. The volunteer workers also receive food-safety instructions from the facility staff.

There are seven people at each work station, who fill packages with prepared food and basic dry goods such as beans, rice, and chickpeas. The food is bagged and labeled with the name of the group who helped to prepare them. Food packages feed a family for a week.

The bags are then boxed and trucked to locations throughout Israel for distribution to families living in poverty, including needy children, the elderly, Holocaust survivors, and others who are desperate for critical food assistance.

Pantry Packer volunteer Yonit recently went to the facility with her family, including her son Akiva who was preparing for his bar mitzvah. “I was pleasantly surprised when my family and I visited Pantry Packers. It was both a meaningful and fun experience. Pantry Packers is leading the way in changing how we give – and giving us a chance to be part of that change!”

Not every tour group facilitator allows you to give back to Israel on your trip. Instead of just visiting and seeing the Holy Land sites, you can actually help the poorest Jews so they do not go hungry. You can truly show the Jewish people you stand with Israel.

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