Synagogue does its part in ‘healing the world’

Students from the Westchester Youth Alliance organization were among 700 volunteers who took shifts on Sunday, Nov. 23 for the Community Thanksgiving Dinner Program organized by Temple Shaaray Tefila. The program feeds over 4,000 people.  Not only food is involved, volunteers take shifts decorating and writing notes to the recipients. Scenes from throughout the day: bread rolls organized for distribution. In the kitchen where all the prepped food is transformed to dinners. A constant stream of volunteers arrived with and left with food for cooking or delivery. Students from the Westchester Youth Alliance organization are put to work mashing sweet potatoes.  Every flat surface is used for storage and logistics. From left, Gary Cohn, Gayle Wasserman and Richard Leroy, organizers of the effort.

By MARTIN WILBUR

Temple Shaaray Tefila in Bedford Corners has long been known for its participation in an array of social action projects to help the wider community. This week was the largest of them all.

An estimated 700 volunteers from the congregation, local students and others pulled off the synagogue’s annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner Program, which feeds well over 4,000 people through a variety of outlets.

The week-long effort opened with last Sunday’s interfaith Thanksgiving service and dinner where synagogue members were joined by congregants at Antioch Baptist Church and Bedford Presbyterian Church as a first run. 

Between Sunday and Thanksgiving, teams of volunteers prepared and cooked thousands of pounds of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and green beans and broccoli in garlic and oil to provide for dozens of nonprofit organizations in the Bronx, Westchester and Putnam County along with individuals in need. Another 256 families were provided shopping bags of products to prepare their own Thanksgiving.

Gary Cohn co-founded the Thanksgiving Dinner Program more than 20 years ago with the Boy Scout troop that he led at the time to help families associated with a single nonprofit. That has grown into an impressive operation out of the social hall and kitchen at Temple Sharaay Tefila that produces hundreds of trays of food that were delivered or picked up by organizations, including the Boys & Girls Club in Mount Kisco and Mount Vernon, the Mount Kisco Child Care Center and multiple locations of Neighbors Link, where holiday meals for families are held.

“We’re very lucky that the synagogue allowed us to use the kitchen, even with the Scouts,” Cohn said Monday while making sure preparations were going smoothly. “They give us their social hall and the kitchen. For me personally, what’s great about this holiday is that there’s no religious component and there’s no pressure to buy presents. This is truly neighbors caring for neighbors.”

Most of the food is donated to the synagogue by small merchants and large supermarket chains, he added.

Rich Leroy, another longtime volunteer, said in addition to the food preparation, the program also dispenses $8,000 to $10,000 worth of supermarket gift cards in $25 increments, understanding that some people like to shop for themselves. 

Most of the program’s recipients are identified through the Department of Social Services, but there are other people in need in the community that are helped through word-of-mouth, Leroy said.

“Anybody that needs food, they want cooked food, they want raw food, they come, we give them,” he said.

Another volunteer, Gayle Wasserman, explained that the operation gets underway on Sunday with the dinner following the interfaith service. Cooking continues in earnest on Monday with deliveries to the organizations starting on Tuesday. Each large tray of food has 25 portions of each item, so if an organization needs a Thanksgiving meal for 100 guests, they would receive four trays each of turkey, stuffing, potatoes and one of the vegetables, Wasserman said. There are some desserts added as well.

At the same time, families in the area are identified who receive two shopping bags of products so they can make their meal at home.

“It gets bigger every year,” Wasserman said. “I joined like seven years ago and I saw they were doing so much good, but if we sort of organize then we could include some more people,” Wasserman said.

The community dinner program is part of Temple Shaaray Tefila’s main mission, said Howard Greenstein, the synagogue’s executive director.

“We’re seeing some of our core values, which is tikkun olam, healing the world,” Greenstein said. “You’re seeing volunteers making thousands of meals. To me, it is emblematic of what so many people at the temple feel, which is our work in social action is something we all take a huge amount of pride in.”

Cohn said the Community Thanksgiving Dinner Program is a special experience that he and many other volunteers look forward to despite the hard work. The only drawback is the need is so great.

“All I can say is we don’t have to advertise. It’s self-perpetuating,” Cohn said.