It is not often that we can arrange a face-to-face meeting between one of our good people and some of the many religious schools that send us their tzedakah dollar bills and change. For our Israel programs this is even harder to do. But, when Alison Bermant, a teacher at North Shore Synagogue told us that she was going to Israel and wanted to meet Darla Oz, founder of House to House, we quickly made the connection.

We have mentioned Darla’s work with very poor people in Jerusalem many times. A few months ago we asked several religious schools if they would create personal birthday cards for the Survivors Darla was involved with and Alison’s class was among the first to send a beautiful set of cards. Now that Alison was going to Israel she wanted to meet Darla face-to-face and deliver a second batch of cards as well as some much-need tzedakah.

As you can see from the picture, Darla and Alison did meet and soon after Darla was putting those dollar bills and coins to immediate use when she bought new clothes for an elderly man who she recently discovered living alone in sub-standard conditions.

Talk about an immediate return on your tzedakah investment!

Yasher koach to Alison and her North Shore students!