Mannequins here and there.  Swaths of fabric strewn across drafting tables.  Sewing machines and design sketches scattered about.   And lots of chatter and dark coffee.

Yotstrot’s studio in Tel Aviv is a hub of creative energy so common in this city.  But this one is different.  Start talking to the women here, and you will see that besides designing fashion, they are creating new versions of themselves.

“Here, I am learning and understanding that I am a person and not an object, and I can define myself on my own, and not through someone else,” said Lia, a transgender woman in her early 30s who is finding confidence, support and future at Yotsrot as she exits life in the sex trade.  “I have choices now.”

Hofchot et Ha’Yotsrot, or Turning the Tables, was founded in 2011 as a force for women’s empowerment, a venue nourishing community and incubating economic security, advancement and transformation for Lia and others climbing out of the vortex of prostitution.

Lilach Tzur Ben Moshe, Yotsrot’s executive director and founder, was a fashion editor at a leading Israeli online news site and used to commute each day past Tel Aviv’s Central Bus Station, where much of the sex trade takes place. She became disturbed and agitated at the exploitation and ugliness of it all to the point of action, using her own background in design to create a way out.

“The greatest motivation for me was seeing in my own eyes, every day, women who are being used, sold, and exploited in prostitution,” she said. “It hit me in in my strongest point of power as a woman and I knew I had to do something to change it.”

Since its establishment, Yotsrot has assisted more than 300 women with vocational training in design, sewing and pattern making in studios in Tel Aviv and Haifa.  Ongoing training in digital marketing – a skill necessary for any creative entrepreneur in the 21^st century – is also offered with the support of The Good People Fund.

But this is so much more than nuts and bolts training.

In a world in which any sort of trigger can mean a skid toward unintended behaviors, for anyone, Yotsrot is a venue of mutual support and understanding to catalyze self-esteem and fuel dreams.   A network of social workers, counselors and others is committed to ensuring that everyone meets their own definition of success and future.

For Lia, who came to Israel from Russia in the early 1990s, that means ultimately using her new confidence to uplift children through performance art.  For Or, originally from Ethiopia, it means using some of her newfound creative and technical skills to become a graphic designer.

Yotsrot and everyone involved got a major shot of community validation last year during Tel Aviv’s fashion week, when Yotsrot designs got full runway treatment and exposure, worn by Israeli celebrities, including the wife of the city’s mayor.   Another public fashion show will take place in May.

“Knowing every women and every journey she has made, showing on the most lighted stage there is that women in prostitution have so much to offer,” Ben Moshe said, “and seeing and feeling the excitement and the amazing effect on women, this was a moment of pure happiness and pride.”

The organization has had other public moments, actively pushing for anti-prostitution legislation in Israel and being part of a coalition that helped pass a law criminalizing the hiring of prostitutes beginning next year.

“After years of working towards changing public perceptions regarding the damages of prostitution, change has come,” Ben Moshe said.

Back at the Yotsrot studio in Tel Aviv, Lia was fitting a dress she designed for the upcoming fashion show.

“Here, we find out that we can become, and that we can create, and not just break things, including ourselves,” she said.  “And that’s everything.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz

With three young children in tow, including one seven-month old in a harness, she examined a box of corn flakes and then moved on to get some crackers, watercress and green beans.

Just another family trip to the grocery store?  Hardly.

This single mother is in her 30’s and is among the millions of people across the country who are food insecure.  Whatever income and assistance she gets is not enough for her to feed herself and her family.

“This place is helping to keep me and my children fed and healthy because I can’t afford to on my own,” she said, asking that her name stay private. “I am here every week.  I’m not sure what I would do without it.  It is a blessing.”

Her destination is the Interfaith Food Pantry of the Oranges (IFPO) – a Good People Fund grantee – housed three Wednesday mornings each month at the Church of the Epiphany and Christ Church in Orange, NJ.

The organization supplies a wide array of food and other items, like toiletries, that make a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of individuals and families in Orange and East Orange, outside of New York City.

From its beginnings about 25 years ago, when it served about 10 clients per week, IFPO has grown tremendously and now boasts staggering numbers, reflecting the need and the organization’s ability to meet it with community partnerships and the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

In 2018 alone, IFPO’s food and services reached an estimated 18,000 adults, 2,200 seniors and 15,500 children, and about 300 people visit each week.

“There is wealth in this area, but just a mile up the road are people in real need,” said Andy Soloway of nearby Maplewood, one of about 500 volunteers for the organization.  “That’s why we are here.”

This is so much more than a food-giveaway program, though, and one merely needs to walk through it one day to realize that IFPO has grabbed the best elements of marketplace, community center, social hall and farmer’s market, tied it all up with proven practices of customer service, and created one big, bustling and boisterous venue for giving and receiving good.

Living here is an intense respect for the dignity of those who come. They walk from table to table, each piled high with various foodstuffs – grains here, proteins there, vegetables too – so they can actively examine and choose products while engaging with volunteers who can go on about everything from preparation and recipes, to nutritional value and storage.

“We are a community of volunteers focused and committed to helping our neighbors in need with as much grace as we can possibly provide,” said Jodi Cooperman, a volunteer pantry manager and IFPO Treasurer.

“By greeting them, welcoming them by name, escorting and helping them, we are making their experience as good as it can be, making them as individuals feel valued and respected, and building a community of caring and dignity.   And they, in turn, are that much more grateful and appreciative.  It’s just so important.”

And the concept of “client choice” – by which clients choose only the products they like and need and that fit their lifestyles and health profiles – cuts down on food waste, which may occur in more traditional programs that distribute pre-packaged bags of groceries.

Congregating around one table on a recent Wednesday, clients were choosing an allotment of toiletry products, ranging from body gels and shampoos, to mouthwashes and deodorants.  This particular station, which exists due to a grant from The Good People Fund, is just as critical as the ones devoted to food, Cooperman noted.

“We all feel more dignity and self-worth when we feel clean,” she said, noting that federal food assistance programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) don’t cover the cost of toiletries.  “These are essentials.  Why should people have to choose between food and toothpaste?  We don’t want them to have to.”

IFPO is a collaborative effort of three synagogues and one church in the area. Volunteers are also drawn from other faith communities, as well as schools and civic groups, underscoring the power of the many to uplift those who may be struggling.

One Wednesday morning, a group of volunteer adults with special needs – from ECLC (Education, Careers and Lifelong Community), based in Chatham – were helping IFPO clients at the toiletries station underwritten by GPF.

In the process of doing good work and helping others with needs, these volunteers were learning real life skills themselves, part of a cycle of benevolence and nourishment that touches everyone associated with IFPO.

“I don’t count the hours or the days,” said one. “I come for the joy.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

She wore a colorful headscarf and a broad smile greeting her guests one recent afternoon, inviting them to sit and enjoy chocolates set out on her small kitchen table.

Meet Irene Filo. She just turned 108. She lives in a small apartment in New York’s Morningside Heights. She uses a walker to move her slight frame about. She has no family. A live-in caregiver tends to her physical needs.

Irene is at a point in life when frailties, illnesses, memories and limited support can lead to an isolation and loneliness and longing so great as to be devastating to wellbeing and survival.

So it’s no surprise that she welcomed her visitors from LiLY (Lifeforce in Later Years) – a grantee of The Good People Fund – with such natural joy, care and anticipation. In very real ways, they are her connection to community, humanity and life.

LiLY creates that connection for about 100 elderly persons in Morningside Heights, a diverse and vibrant neighborhood that includes Columbia University, but where seniors living in relative isolation – some at or near the poverty line – can easily disappear.

“Just like anyone, they need validation and support and purpose and to feel valued,” said Irene Zola, LiLY’s founder and executive director. “They are too often not getting that. It’s tragic.”

Zola founded LiLY in 2009, shortly after the death of her mother and exposures to the nursing home system and its deficiencies, including undertrained and overworked staff often unable to dispense adequate and informed care.

Realizing that most seniors prefer to remain at home as long as possible, and that many in fact do, she moved to create a neighborhood organization devoted to supporting this often-forgotten population for no charge.

So she set up a card table on the sidewalk of a busy street and began recruiting volunteers. Today, LiLY has built a corps of about 100 people in Morningside Heights serving a near equal amount of seniors there.

The spectrum of volunteer interactions is wide, from friendly home visits and walks together, to helping with paperwork, escorting to doctor visits, making connections to professionals and services, and going to the pharmacy or grocery store for needed items.

The Good People Fund supports LiLY with a grant that helps pay for a social worker who connects seniors to services and resources beyond LiLY’s scope, helps families with care issues, and runs support groups.

“I have had some perfectly wonderful people come see me,” said a 97-year-old senior in the LiLY network. “It is good to know there are such people around. I thought they all died in a fire or something!”

LiLY calls its initiative in the neighborhood “Morningside Village,” a name that captures its very unique qualities creating community in not only name, but in practice. Most volunteers come from within the immediate neighborhood, for instance, sharing common points of reference and such with the seniors they visit and help.

“People are being connected in ways they wouldn’t be otherwise,” Zola said. “We may run into each other on the street while out taking walks or going to the doctor. It is like a small village.”

The success of Morningside Heights Village has been replicated elsewhere by LiLY. An initiative further east, called West Harlem Neighbors, began in 2016 and now involves about 25 local volunteers helping about 50 elderly persons.  And in upstate New York, LiLY formed community partnerships to create the Catskill Neighbors program, through which about 25 volunteers are helping a nearly equal number of seniors there.

Zola has moved LiLY into the advocacy field as well.  The organization is the force behind Celebrate Our Elders Week, marked at the beginning of October and recognized by the mayor of New York City and the state legislature of New York through official proclamations.

The purpose of such a public campaign, Zola said, is to ensure that seniors in our communities are not forgotten, but recognized, seen, and even honored, and that their needs are understood, acknowledged and supported.  LiLY has worked with the New York City Department of Education to create activities such as letter writing to elders and inviting them to visit schools.

“We want to kill ageism early in life,” Zola said, “and ensure that young people grow up honoring and respecting seniors.”

LiLY’s volunteer-driven program has immediate trickle down effects beyond the seniors themselves. If a family caregiver exists – and often one does not – home visits or errand running by LiLY volunteers can relieve very real stresses and conflicts.

“If I know that a LiLY volunteer is coming on Tuesday, then I know that I can leave and take the day to myself,” said Genia Gould, who stopped working and moved into her father’s Morningside Heights apartment to take care of him and his daily affairs. “For him, the visits are a vitamin. For me, they open time to take care of myself.”

Recently, LiLY volunteers, clients and others gathered at an annual luncheon.  Among them was Irene Filo.

Being that her birthday was close, everyone sang her a rousing “Happy Birthday” in celebration of her life, her friendship, and her indomitable spirit.

Her smile was as wide as it was that other afternoon, when LiLY volunteers came knocking on her door for a visit over chocolates.

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

It wasn’t easy, because the orchard was on a sloping hillside carpeted by loose dirt.  So keeping footing while plucking apricots from ripening trees was a challenge.

But the dozen-plus volunteers who showed up in late June to harvest this orchard were as dexterous and balanced as they were committed and focused.

“If it has some color on it, then pick it,” one veteran volunteer told a newcomer. “Each one we get is one that would have gone to waste if we weren’t here.”

And in just a few hours, over 700 pounds of the luscious fruit had been picked, boxed and hauled off to food agencies for quick distribution to people in need – an estimated 1,400 from this one day alone.

The late-afternoon pick, which continued toward dusk, was a snapshot of the work and impact of Village Harvest.  It’s a San Jose-based non-profit organization dedicated to gathering the bounty of fruit growing in backyards and small orchards and getting it into the hands and onto the plates of those who may be going without.

The area around San Jose – including Santa Clara, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties, where Village Harvest is active – is one of the most verdant in the country and boasts an agricultural history and spirit that is legendary.   It is rare for suburban properties here not to have a fruit tree or two, and many larger estates have full orchards conserved by owners.

Such is the case where this particular apricot harvest took place.  Nestled on an estate high in Los Altos Hills, with sweeping views of the Bay Area, an orchard with about 80 apricot trees was bearing fruit at peak season.  But for Village Harvest and its volunteer corps, much – if not all of it – would have gone to waste.

“Many property owners here are well aware of the history of this region, so they don’t want to plow down these trees, but they don’t want to be farmers either,” said Craig Diserens, Village Harvest’s executive director.  “That is where we step in.”

Volunteers harvest fruit of all sorts – from apricots and pears, to apples, oranges and lemons – at no less than 600 homes and 30 orchards throughout the year.

All this work makes a hefty impact on many pressing societal challenges, like hunger, poverty and healthy eating for vulnerable populations.  In 2017 alone, volunteers picked 225,000 pounds of fresh fruit, which translated to 600,000 servings of healthy food for tens of thousands of people in the community.

The Good People Fund, which makes food rescue and the alleviation of hunger a priority, has supported Village Harvest with grants to help cover the costs of harvesting and development of a directory of produce donation locations.

Diserens, a former computer hardware designer and R&D manager who also worked at high-tech start-ups, described Village Harvest as an “accidental organization,” founded more organically than purposefully, but developing and growing in reach and impact since its first harvest in 2001.   He recalled how a local 4-H chapter approached his wife at the time, a Master Gardener, for advice on where to locate fruit to make jam.

“We realized there was infinitely more around us than anyone would ever need to make jam,” he said.  “It was more of a sense of recognizing abundance around us and wanting to put it to good use to help people.”

Village Harvest now relies on Diserens’ strategic and visionary acumen honed in Silicon Valley, and the sweat of 1,200 volunteers from throughout the community who in total contribute about 12,000 hours of work each year.  Their purposes are varied, from those passionate about food waste and poverty, and those who are interested in gardening, to those who want to be outdoors doing something useful and social, and parents who come with their children to instill an appreciation for hard work and the earth.

For volunteer Sue Godfrey of nearby Los Altos, the June apricot picking marked her 40th event with Village Harvest.  Her first, three years ago, was with her son as part of a high school service league project, one of many community partnerships that Village Harvest has forged since its founding.

“It is doing good while getting good exercise and being very social,” she said.  “And as volunteers, we get to bring home some of the fruit that is damaged and not good for distribution.  I’ve done a lot with plums.”

The community-building power of Village Harvest has grown as a reflection of the organization’s work.  In fact, “strengthen our community” is part of the heading on its website.

Beyond the camaraderie among volunteers joined in a food justice activity, workshops and resources are available covering everything from fruit tree care and gardening, to making preserves and pruning.

Back at the staging area at the edge of the orchard, volunteers were examining apricots and separating out ones damaged or not fully ripe, ensuring the highest quality shipments to community service and food agencies that form Village Harvest’s distribution chain.

“Every community should have a Village Harvest of its own,” said Diserens, as he looked over the bounty. “What abundance they tap into may vary, but the sense of community spirit and doing good is the same, and so inspiring.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

David Baskin, left, and Ilan Kedar, co-founders of Ani Shlishi, in front of the organization’s new secondhand clothing store in Tel Aviv before it opened in the spring.

There’s a new shop selling clothes on Tel Aviv’s busy Allenby Street.  Ordinarily, that’s not so remarkable, but upon closer look, this one is.  It has a mission:  uplifting lives and community.

Ani Shlishi, it’s called.  In English, that translates to “I am third.”  Signs within the store, like the artful one near the register, go deeper.  “First comes the greater good, the welfare of others is second, and I am Third,” it reads.

Ask David Baskin, the Chicago-raised, 28-year old CEO of Ani Shlishi, and he’ll tell you about Ross Freeland, his teacher and baseball coach at Evanston Township High School. He repeated and lived these words, until his death in 2016, instilling in his students a sense of individual sacrifice for the good of others and community.

“It was the idea of being a selfless, generous, kind person, with responsibility to others, whether through the prism of being a teammate on a baseball team or just as a human being,” Baskin said. “That never left me.”

In fact, this brick-and-mortar retail store, which opened in a 55-square-meter space in the spring, is the face of a non-profit organization of the same name.

Ani Shlishi collects secondhand clothes for resale, employs at-risk Israeli youth along the operational chain to give them marketable skills and a future, and uses sales proceeds to fund vocational training scholarships for them and other youth similarly situated on an at-risk spectrum that includes poverty, drug use and homelessness.

The Good People Fund is partnering with the organization with a grant for stipends for young Israelis working at the new store.

“For many of them, this is the first time they have the validation that they can actually be someone,” Baskin said.  “We are giving them permission to dream of infinite possibilities.  Everyone wants to be someone, but not until now has anyone given them that encouragement.”

Ani Shlishi originated in 2016 when Baskin, a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), noticed that other soldiers – like him finishing their service – were discarding piles of clothes and other usable items before leaving the kibbutzim where they were housed.   He started collecting them for donation to orphanages and other agencies dedicated to underserved populations, and saw first hand how peoples’ lives can be changed by small acts.

Soon, he teamed with his friend and former superior officer in the IDF, Ilan Kedar, who was then working in Israel’s booming high-tech sector, and the two began scouring Tel Aviv for secondhand or never-used clothing to keep up a steady stream of donations.

“David’s entire two-bedroom apartment in Tel Aviv was stacked with the clothing we were getting,” said Kedar, 27, now Ani Shlishi’s COO.   “We would spend hours and hours all night long going through them to decide what to donate or recycle.  It was intense. What we were doing became a part of us and we knew it was making a difference.”

In less than a year, the pair was running pop-up secondhand shops throughout Tel Aviv, selling collected clothing and using proceeds to help at-risk youth in the city.  Soon, they had an established stall at Tel Aviv’s bustling Shuk HaCarmel, where Ani Shlishi’s visibility and sales soared and the need for a more traditional and roomy retail store became apparent.

The two view the store as a multifaceted center of doing good, touching everyone from those who enter it with bags of donated clothing, and customers who are supporting community, to at-risk youth working there, gaining self-worth and new skills, and those getting vocational training through Ani Shlishi scholarships.

“We are breaking cycles of poverty and inertia, and everyone having anything to do with this is contributing to that,” Baskin said, pointing out a sign hanging in the store that declares in Hebrew, “if you purchased, you donated.”

Already, Ani Shlishi made it possible for a 17-year-old at-risk youth to enroll in a program to become a professional lifeguard, typically a stable and well-paid vocation in Israel.    And another, age 15, disengaged from his family and with a history of drug dealing, is now tapping into his dancing talents and taking a course with the intention of becoming an instructor himself.

“To us, this might not be a big deal, but to them, these sparks are a very big deal,” Kedar said. “They are not finishing high school and they are not going to college.  They need something practical as a path to self-sustainability.  With a skill, they can give back and feel of value.  That is huge.”

Back at the store, Baskin was inspecting a few dozen bags of donated clothing that would be sorted for either sale, further donation, or recycling.   He himself was an admittedly “troubled” teenager, marked by a period of aimlessness and some brushes with the law, his path corrected with support of family, educational opportunities and IDF service.

“Like every single item in our store that was cast away and is now finding its rightful home, these at-risk kids are the same,” Baskin said. “The mainstream systems aren’t for them, they need something a little unique and we try to help them find their way and their place.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund

Some set off by plane.  Others by car.  And still others in a shared van.   Their common destination, the mountains of Appalachia, where need wears a human face and tikun olam can be in short supply.

Waiting for them: a massive truck of donated food and other items to unload, a winding ramp to be finished for a man with handicaps, and multiple structures to fix, paint and spruce up — among other projects.

This was tikun olam powered by sweat, a few days of positive works and human connections earlier this month to honor the sacred Jewish value of repairing the world — a guiding Good People Fund (GPF) principle in both theory and practice.

“We are trying to make a little corner of the world slightly better, sooner, for some of these people,” said Peter Freimark, a GPF Board member and volunteer from Cleveland.

He was one of about 20 volunteers from around the country — including a delegation from Congregation B’nai Israel in Millburn, NJ — who gathered in McRoberts, a Kentucky town of just under 800 people in a region stained by rural poverty.

Here, unemployment, economic stagnation and lack of social services and opportunity are not distant statistics, but day-to-day reality.

“Every trip to McRoberts gives me and all of our committed volunteers greater understanding of the unique problems affecting people living there,” said Naomi Eisenberger, GPF Executive Director.

“Beyond the physical things that we leave behind, the fact that we care and come back year after year is an indication that we recognize that these people are there and that we care about them.”

At one point, she joined Susie Duncan, a 15-year-resident, to help volunteers unload a 53-foot trailer load of canned food and other non-perishable items, plus household goods and personal hygiene products.  The items will be distributed through schools, churches and community centers to those who need them, and also delivered directly to elderly and homebound people.

“To realize there are people in the world who care about us and our well being gives hope to a very cut-off community,” she said. “When you feel so isolated and that no one cares or is looking, and then The Good People Fund group comes in here and does things for people they don’t know, it restores faith in the goodness of people and what they can do.”

At one home, volunteers finished a job started last year by sealing a lengthy ramp linking a house steeped on a hill with the road below, easing the way for a wheelchair-bound man to socialize within the community.  At another, volunteers helped a recently widowed woman clean and spruce up her home, adding brightness at a vulnerable, lonely time for her.

The June trip marked the ninth year that GPF, in partnership with Congregation B’nai Israel, brought a volunteer corps to McRoberts.  Many participants – from high school students to seniors – have made the trip numerous times.

Andrea Levine of Short Hills, NJ, a member of Congregation B’nai Israel making her second trip to McRoberts, said beyond the hammer-and-nails projects on the ground there, people-to-people connections can be even more long lasting.

“We should all step outside of our comfort zones and help people we may never have met otherwise,” she said.  “Year after year, relationships and trust are built where they never before existed and probably would never be.”

Steve Moehlman of South Orange, NJ, a GPF Board member, underscored the point. He described how a young boy in McRoberts followed him around and befriended him, sharing how he would spend the summer swimming in the local creek with friends and making birdsongs.

“His life may be difficult, but in every basic way, he is just a boy like any other kid anywhere else — and as deserving,” said Moehlman, who has made three previous trips to McRoberts and was accompanied this year by his 25-year-old son, Jesse, who has been going since he was in college.

“It is an immeasurably positive experience to create these connections, find out what we all have in common, and how we can all just help each other overcome the various challenges we all have.”

By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Good People Fund