After seeing both food waste and food insecurity in their community, Simon and Aleeza Berman started Offer Kindness to connect the two challenges. Through a network of volunteers, homeowners, farmers, food banks, and community organizations, they rescue surplus fruit that would otherwise go to waste and distribute it to individuals and families in need throughout California’s Central Valley. Their work transforms excess harvests into nourishment, strengthens community connections, and demonstrates how simple acts of kindness can create meaningful change
Hunger & Food Rescue
Bagel Rescue
Atlanta’s Erin Steiglitz began Bagel Rescue only a few years ago, but in that short time she and her dedicated crew of more than 100 volunteers have managed to rescue about 15,000 bagels weekly. With more than 36 bagel shops donating, dozens of social service agencies benefit from the daily drop-offs while at the same time, ending waste and supporting hunger relief.
JLM Food Rescuers
40% of edible food, around 2.5 million tons in Israel alone, is discarded unnecessarily along every step of the food supply chain. At the same time, food insecurity, or the ability for people to provide sufficient healthy food for themselves or their family, continues to be a problem. Daniella Seltzer and Itay Peled have come together to start the JLM Food Rescuers in the Givat Shaul produce market in Jerusalem. This creative social business builds community in the city, while at the same time rescues tons of beautiful produce which is redistributed to hungry people, and also used for delicious recipes for the program’s catering business.
Our matching funds are directed to expenses incurred at the produce market where the program operates.
Necha Malka
In Israel, Shira Gilor, a resident of Hashmonaim, thought she knew her neighbors well until the day she was approached by a local mother. The woman confided that she did not have enough food for her children. Quietly, Shira delivered a package to the family, an event which became a personal turning point, as she pondered the food waste she witnessed around her.
Shira knew that this woman’s situation was not an exception, and so began her grassroots, neighborhood operation to secure food and discreetly feed her hungry neighbors. Necha Malka (named for the mother of a generous community member who wanted to help Shira) serves 24 families vetted by local social workers.
Volunteers facilitate the work and supermarket scrip (which we help underwrite) makes possible the purchase of any food that is not donated.
Zehava and Karyn—Feeding the Neighbors
Karyn Gellman resides in Baka, one of Jerusalem’s most affluent neighborhoods. When Karyn and her friend Zehava Taub (who has since moved) learned from the nearby school that there were neighbors who struggled to put food on the table, they wanted to help.
The two women approached other families who agreed to volunteer as well as provide food and additional basic items on a monthly basis, and the program was born. Today, many families receive this simple but important boost, which is enhanced at holiday time with supermarket scrip we have purchased on their behalf.
