By Alexander Rapaport, of Masbia Soup Kitchen Network
1. As the person responsible for paying the bills for providing over 2,000,000 meals a year to needy New Yorkers, the best way to aid me and the thousands of volunteers help the people in need is by making a simple monetary online donation. Click here to find out how your donation becomes part of the 2,000,000 meals.
2. In addition to your donation, you can get Amazon to donate to us as well, at zero cost to you. Before you do any holiday shopping, sign up with Amazon Smile and 0.5% of what you order on Amazon will be donated to Masbia. Please sign up today even if you are not planning to shop right now.
3. While you do your holiday shopping, you might want to consider Masbia’s Chef Ruben Diaz on your gift shopping list. Commercial restaurants constantly need to replenish equipment. Our kitchens are heavily used to create over 2,000,000 meals every year which creates enormous wear and tear. Here is our Chef’s equipment wishlist. Check it out. A friend of mine created a special website, called MyFiki, to promote Amazon wishlist donations. Click here to find our wishlist on MyFiki. Let me know which one you find more user friendly
4. For the first time since we have been around for over 10 years, we will start having Shabbat meals at the newly reopened Masbia Boro Park. I have created a separate Amazon wish list for the items needed to be able to serve people with dignity on Shabbat and throughout the week. Click here to check it out on Amazon. Click here for the same list via MyFiki.
5. Speaking about gifts, Masbia’s website has its own store. We are now offering high-end, farm to table extra virgin olive oil that will be shipped from the farm in Oregon to anyone who makes a donation of $200. For a donation of $1,000, you will receive all 5 different breeds of olives. That will for sure make the most braggable olive oil you ever had or gifted to a friend. Check it out over here. Don’t forget, Chanukah is coming up.
6. Re-purposing old furniture is very chic these days. I am sure you will agree that the most highly regarded piece of wood would be from a table that fed thousands of charity meals to the needy. The Talmud likens that table to the altar of the Temple. Imagine having a mezuzah on steroids where the covenant with God is not only that you put a parchment of Shema on your doorpost, but the case is made out of Masbia tables. This very limited edition of mezuzah cases. carved by artist Alex Aronov. was added to our store today. For a donation of $3,600, we will send you one of those. Check out the store.
7. The hardest one to mention here is this one. Masbia of Queens is currently homeless. Instead of feeding people in a restaurant style setting, our staff and volunteers hang around in front of our boarded up, used to be facility to hand out heat meals to-go. Renovation of our new facility has stalled due to lack of finances. We have put together a dedication campaign to help us raise the funds needed to continue renovating and operating our soon to be Forest Hills facility. Options start at $25 a month to $180,000 for location naming rights. Click here to see the campaign.
Thank you so much for the long read and for helping us out.