Send leftovers from your mitzvah to feed the hungry!
Food Insecurity is Here
Food insecurity is when you do not have enough food access or nutritious food to feed everyone in your house.
Food Waste is a Big Problem
Right now, the leftover food from your B’nei Mitzvah probably gets thrown away. Food waste fills up landfills and contributes to climate change. Leftovers are typically thown away because it’s easier than donating. The leftover food is in large containers. It is a lot of work to transfer it into smaller sizes for donation. It also must be kept at certain temperatures and used within a certain time to prevent it from spoiling. Catering companies are also nervous that could get sued if someone gets sick from the leftover food after it leaves the event. Last, events are typically help at night on a weekend. Traditional food banks aren’t open then. In fact, many of them will not accept prepared food even when they are open. There are a lot of obstacles that have kept leftovers from being donated. However, with just a little effort this food can be safely donated to feed people who need it!
This community fridge in Germantown was started by my teacher.
Mutual Aid Fridges
What is a mutual aid fridge/community fridge? They are fridges that help solve food insecurity. They became a lot more common during the pandemic. Community fridges are open 24 hours every day, so people have access to food at all times. This also means you can donate food to them at any hour of any day. The fridges don’t require any registration to donate or take food. They are typically run by volunteers and have fewer rules about what they will and won’t take compared to a formal food pantry. For example, if you have leftovers from a dinner you made but you aren’t going to eat them, you put them in a community fridge! Your neighbor will be super happy to eat them.
This is me showing the leftovers we packed from a kiddush lunch at our synagogue. Think of how many meals that is!
Donate Your Leftovers
We created a system to help you donate leftovers using your local community fridge. The basic process is to buy a bunch of takeout containers, like you see in the picture to the left. Then scoop a little bit of each dish into these individual containers. After that, borrow our coolors and icepacks and transport the containers to the community fridge nearest you. (Scroll down to find a nearby fridge that accepts prepared foods.) Load the leftovers into the fridge and be proud of the mitzvah you’ve just done!
Click the How To button above for a detailed, step-by-step explanation of what to do.
Find the Fridge Near You!!
Keep it Going!
Help us grow this idea and website so we can reduce waste and hunger!
Add a blog entry with pictures and let us know about how you were able to donate food!
Use this form to send me ideas for how to improve this!
Share this website with your family, friends, school, and congregation!