What to do with all the leftovers

(hint:  it's a tzedekah idea!)

by Amy Guth

(originally published on Jewcy.com)

Many times, leaving events and seeing buffets being shoved into the trash, I've thought, Someone ought to start an organization to bring this food immediately to people who need it.

Table to Table: Waste not, want not, yo. Enter Table to Table, a food rescue organization in Israel that harvests excess fresh food from caterers, cafeterias, manufacturers, grocers and farmers and delivers the food to soup kitchens, food pantries, senior citizen centers, homeless shelters, women's shelters and meals-on-wheels-type organizations. And, their website is filled with useful information like hunger statistics in Israel, links to additional related resources, and the story on their wonderful programs, such as their b'nai miztvah project ideas section, volunteer opportunities, Hametz collection initiative service, and a program I rather like: Project Leket. If you are heading to Israel (or are there already), Project Leket allows volunteers to sign up to go with members of this organization to pick fruit, knowing everything picked goes to those who need it the most. biblically inspired, of course, in Deuteronomy. Of course, if you don't happen to be in Israel, you can always give tzedakah here, volunteer with the New Jersey organization or the similarly-named and -purposed, (but unaffiliated) organization in Iowa City.

 

About AmyGuth
Amy Guth is the author of Three Fallen Women, which she is perpetually schlepping around to pimp out. Between travels, she's hard at work on her next novels and is the woman with the pink-stripey hair usually starting up the horah at MOT get-togethers. Keeping true to her stick-it-to-the-man Hebrew namesake (Shifreh), she has written about feminism, sexism, tikkun olam, tzedekah, blaxploitation, social reform, media literacy and all sorts of other things for The Believer, Monkeybicycle, Bookslut, Hungry Chicago, Four Magazine, JewishFringe.com, and The Complete Meal, among others. She blogs Bigmouth indeed Strikes Again about everything, Granola Bar D'var about Jewy eco-kasher goodness, and a few other blogs here and there, has collaborated on a few shows within Second City's Training Center and is an assistant fiction editor at 42 Opus. The select few remember the days when she dabbled in improv, as well, including the night she was the "Kill Whitey" crayon. Stalk her silly at Guth-a-Go-Go.com.

 

 

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