For someone like me, who spent most of his career in the business community, working at Jewish Family Services for the last five years has been a real eye-opener. I knew there were people living in poverty in our community, but I never got close enough to those in need to really understand their stories. But at JFS, as I talk with our social workers and clients, I have learned just how basic some of those needs are.
In Pirkei Avot, there is a saying, Im ein kemach, ein Torah; Im ein Torah, ein kemach — “If there is no flour, there is no Torah; if there is no Torah, there is no flour.” The rabbis, for whom Torah and study were everything, understood that study and spirituality couldn’t take place when someone was hungry. Food, represented here by flour, is our most basic human need.
Many people assume that hunger is a problem in the broader world, but not a problem here in our own community. Chronicle Publisher Steve Rose wrote an important article this summer in the Kansas City Star, “Suburbs are not immune to rising tide of hunger.” Rose describes how many families in Johnson County are experiencing more and more food insecurity, a term used to describe the inability of a family to meet basic food needs. At JFS, we just distributed Rosh Hashanah food baskets to twice as many people as we did only three years ago. There is a huge amount of need out there, and while there are government programs to help, there are large, gaping holes in the government safety net.
To take a small step toward filling one of those holes, JFS is opening a food pantry. Some people have asked me why we’re doing this. Doesn’t Harvesters take care of food needs for our community? Harvesters-The Community Food Network, while a wonderful organization, is a wholesale network, not a food pantry. It supplies food pantries in our community; it is not a place individuals and families go to get food for themselves. Each year, JFS works with hundreds of food insecure clients, both Jewish and non-Jewish, right in our community and it has been frustrating not to be able to meet their needs for food directly.
The JFS Food Pantry will serve our clients who are food insecure, regardless of their religion. We will provide kosher food to those that keep kosher, and the pantry will offer a way for people to shop and choose what they need. We’ve already become an affiliate of Harvesters, which means we’ll be able to acquire food from that terrific source. But while food from Harvesters is essential, it’s not enough to meet the need. We will still have to collect donations from our own community. We have already seen the community come together with donations during the High Holiday Food drives. As you read this, we’re beginning to collect barrels of food from many synagogues in town. That’s a great start, but we have a long way to go.
To learn more about hunger in our community and how you can help, please join us for the official launch of the JFS Food Pantry. It will be at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 7, at the Jewish Community Campus. You’ll hear from leaders working on reducing hunger in our community. You’ll learn about the Mitzvah Garden, our community garden that will be a partner of the new JFS Food Pantry. And you’ll learn how you can participate, whether through volunteering at the pantry, donating food, or getting involved in other ways. Yaish Kemach, Yaish Torah. There will be flour, so there will be Torah.
Don Goldman is the executive director and CEO of Jewish Family Services.
