It’s the beginning of August and here in New Jersey home gardeners are starting to reap great rewards from their careful tending of the backyard garden. Zucchini, tomatoes, peppers and beans are in abundance, along with basil and many other delicious fresh herbs, vegetables and fruits. Once you have made your tenth zucchini bread and served tomatoes in a dozen different ways, NJ gardeners and their counterparts throughout the country now have an important resource available to them to help share their bounty.

AmpleHarvest.org is the brainchild of Gary Oppenheimer, himself a master gardener, who recognized that this seasonal bounty, grown by millions of home gardeners across the country, could help to ease the very serious needs we have today with an ever-growing number of people throughout the country who cannot afford to feed themselves and their families. Even if you are fortunate enough to get food from a local pantry or food bank, it is not likely that there will be fresh produce available. Using some creative mitzvah thinking, Gary developed the idea of creating a registry of all pantries and soup kitchens across the country. Home gardeners faced with more fresh produce than they could possibly use need only visit his site, find the nearest facility and drop off their excess produce. You can help not only by donating your excess crop but also by urging your local pantry or soup kitchen to visit http://ampleharvest.org so that they can register.

Gary recently sent us an email with the following thoughts. We think that they bear repeating here:

We are encouraging people to take a copy of http://AmpleHarvest.org/downloads/GardenShop.pdf to their local garden shop, nursery, lawn and garden section of their Lowe’s/Home Depot/Sears/Wal-Mart, hardware store, etc. to ask that the store manager post it by their cashiers or in another conspicuous location. People are also posting it on the public bulletin boards in their supermarket, library, house of worship, health club, etc. Anything you can do to help publicize this would be very helpful.

Although many people are concerned about their own economic situation, the AmpleHarvest.org campaign enables Americans to help their neighbors by reaching into their backyards instead of their back pockets.

The Good People Fund has offered Gary help with his all-volunteer effort and has agreed to spread the word to as many people as we can. Won’t you help too? Visit http://ampleharvest.org to read the entire story of this creative and very important effort to combat hunger in this country.

We all know about four-legged creatures that do mitzvahs…there are horses that provide therapeutic riding for kids and adults with many different disabilities, and then there are guide dogs who work primarily with blind people. We’ve even met a few mitzvah cats. But, sheep?

The sheep pictured here is one of an entire flock (yes, when you have more than one sheep it is called a flock!) of 15 fiber animals that are raised for the beautiful wool they produce. This particular flock calls Queens, New York (one of Manhattan’s five boroughs) home and their wool has been offered to Warm Woolies, (http://warmwoolies.org), a small non-profit The Good People Fund has worked with this past year. Warm Woolies was the creation of Kimberly Turnbow, a Denver attorney whose love of knitting led her to use her talents on behalf of others. Warm Woolies provides hand-knitted wool garments for children in orphanages in the Former Soviet Union as well as children growing up in a few Native American communities not far from Denver. All of these beautiful garments are created by volunteer knitters across the country.

Kimberly wrote us a few days ago with several exciting pieces of news. The first was the decision of the Queens Zoo to spin the wool from these beautiful animals into fiber which will be sent to Warm Woolies which will then turn it over to some of their volunteers to create new warm garments.

The second piece of news in Kimberly’s email shared:

Lands’ End and Warm Woolies FeelGood Knitting Campaign

Lands’ End and Warm Woolies have partnered to kick off a national knitting campaign to create warm items for homeless families on tribal reservations. We are looking for 150 knitting volunteers willing to knit with the exclusive Lands’ End FeelGood yarn. We will ship the yarn directly to volunteers.

The initiative is part of a national campaign to support the new collection of FeelGood sweaters and accessories sold at Lands’ End and landsend.com. For each FeelGood item purchased beginning on September 1st, Lands’ End will donate yarn to knitting volunteers across the country in an effort to warm up homeless families across the country.

Talk about FeelGood! If you are a knitter, be in touch with Warm Woolies. So many people will be warmer this coming winter if you sign up to use your knitting skills on behalf of tzedakah and mitzvahs!

It was just about a year ago when Wendi Weill, a long-time resident of her community, began to hear unsettling stories about local residents that seemed to reflect the effects of the serious economic turmoil that has engulfed most of this country. Was it possible that an elderly woman sat in the dark as evening approached because she feared her utility bill would be bigger than she could afford to pay? Was it possible that an ill father didn’t purchase his medications because he wanted to use his limited funds to buy food for his family?

Wendi’s community is, in many ways, idyllic. Known for its (largely) high per capita income, an excellent school system and excellent quality of life, Wendi was stunned when she approached local social services that corroborated exactly what she was learning.

What should she do? As a community, don’t we have some responsibility for each other? Some compassion? These were her neighbors, possibly people just down her block and no other agency existed for just this type of short-term, emergency situation. Within a few months, Wendi gathered others who shared her concern and Down the Block began.

When the Good People Fund learned about Down the Block we were impressed with its focus as well as the very real possibilities that this model could be adopted by other communities where neighbors feel a responsibility for those who may have fallen on hard times and may really be…just down the block.

The Good People Fund’s donation to this fledgling group was used to pay an unpaid utility bill for a man who had worked his entire life but was forced to lose his business after serious illness struck. Though he had a job waiting for him after he had medical clearance from his doctors, the utility company was threatening shut-off. Our tzedakah was used to pay that bill as well as another utility bill for a single mother who was faced with a $2500 utility bill after the company learned that her meter had been faulty. Though the utility was willing to work out a reasonable payment plan, she still needed $600 up front.

How many of us know what is going on down our block?

In her Jerusalem neighborhood, the Rabbanit Bracha Kapach is known as an angel. (though we suspect that description is shared by people throughout the tiny country who know of her work).

We think of her as a one-woman social service organization. Her life is dedicated to mitzvahs and tzedakah and it has been that way since her very first act of chesed, performed while she was still a youngster in her native Yemen. Despite the advancing years, the Rabbanit continues her legendary work – a summer camp for city kids who would otherwise have little distraction from the long hot summer days on Jerusalem’s streets; Passover food for thousands of poor people who might otherwise not be able to enjoy the holiday and its food-focused traditions; daily knocks at her door by people who just cannot provide sufficient food for themselves and their families.

Along with the canned goods, fresh challah, and other basic food, we know that the Rabbanit is always in need of diapers. Yes! Diapers. For many young struggling families, the cost of diapers is just beyond their reach and an extra pack will sometimes make the difference when deciding to use your limited resources to buy food or medicine or the all-important diapers.

The picture above shows the Rabbanit standing on her mirpesset (balcony) at about 7am this past Monday morning, amidst the 40 packages of diapers that we had purchased and delivered to her door. Our friend Shira, who arranged for the delivery, told us how happy the Rabbanit was and how happy her families will be when they learn that she can once again provide this costly but necessary item.

As we suspected, Shira also shared that before she left, the Rabbanit offered her many blessings and even asked her to pass along a few to the Good People Fund and the many donors who made this mitzvah possible.

If you have ever had the chance to sit in something called a Snoezelen room, you know what true relaxation really is. I have had the experience many times while visiting Shalva, a very special program that provides respite care for profoundly disabled kids in Israel.

While reclining in a Snoezelen room, you are exposed to various calming sensory stimuli-it could be aromatherapy, warm lighting, soothing sounds…tranquility is the ultimate goal and you usually experience it shortly after entry.

Our opportunity to become involved in a Snoezelen "mitzvah" began with an email from Second Wind Dreams (see Tzedakah Diaries April 28, 2008, July 9, 2008), an organization which helps to make dreams come true for residents in closed-care institutions. As part of Second Wind’s new partnership with Harrah’s Foundation, nursing homes (that adopt the Second Wind program) in certain parts of the country where Harrah’s has a presence will benefit from Harrah employees who commit to volunteering in these homes. When Second Wind was in touch with a New Orleans’ nursing home that was now part of this partnership they learned about the home’s wish to provide the Snoezelen experience for some of their dementia residents. Experience has shown that exposure to the room’s calming stimuli can have a positive effect on those who experience the often-frenetic and disorienting symptoms of dementia.

Would the Good People Fund be willing to help Second Wind provide the funds for this? You bet!

And we did…

The war that broke out in Israel last December brought many civilian casualties as even more Kassam rockets fell on the southern part of the country. One of those casualties was a young boy named Avi who despite the severity of his injuries, continues to recover. At first, doctors believed that he would not survive-and yet he did. As his condition improved, their dire predictions of severe brain-damage and poor motor skills also proved wrong.

After immediate care in a local hospital, Avi was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital in Jerusalem where intense therapy continues today.

Throughout this entire trauma, now more than seven months later, Avi’s family tries to cope. Both parents had to stop working, a younger child was left in the care of a grandmother and everyone continued to make the long trip from Beersheva to Jerusalem several times each week.

Through the generosity of others, Avi’s family has received various types of critically important help to meet their needs, but what they really needed was some "fun money".

What is "fun money"? "Fun Money" can pay for a cab ride and entrance to the beautiful Jerusalem zoo. Or perhaps, two tickets to the movies to see the latest Disney film. For some people, "fun money" may seem of no real consequence. Our experience is that it is just these simple and seemingly easy acts of kindness that make all of the difference in the life of someone like Avi and his family.

So – when we received an email from Karyn London, the social worker who works on behalf of ATZUM (http://atzum.org), an excellent Israel-based organization dedicated to helping survivors of terror attacks, asking if the Good People Fund might be able to fund some special activities for Avi, the answer was an immediate, "Yes"! Karyn has just written to update us on Avi’s condition and was happy to report that despite some physical and emotional setbacks, his first trip to the zoo was due to take place this week, soon to be followed by a therapeutic riding session and even some bowling! (he can sit on the floor and roll the ball).

As this picture shows, Avi did go to the zoo, accompanied by Karyn’s son Yona, and we told Karyn to let us know when the first $150 in "fun money" is used…we know that donors will sign on to help us replenish this special mitzvah!