The Jewish Relief Agency of Greater Philadelphia had to cancel its much anticipated “bar mitzvah” fundraiser last Sunday, Dec. 8—two hours before it was to begin—because of an afternoon snowstorm that made road conditions too risky to travel. The same inclement weather caused the city to declare a “Code Blue,” instituting extra measures for getting the homeless off the streets and out of the bitter cold.
Even though the party was off, the need was still there. So JRA sprang into action it wasn’t about to let all that good food go to waste. The staff took to the phones and started calling around to find out who would accept the $6,000 to $7,000 of ready-to-go gourmet hors d’oeuvres, as well as an entire spread of whole turkeys, fish, and slabs of salami and corned beef.
Members of the food-relief organization’s leadership—along with Mark Rabinowitz, whose family was being honored that night—were already at the Valley Forge Sheraton where the event was to take place. They were there setting up as the snow continued to fall.
So the group hatched a new plan. They went through the program with the dozen or so people gathered, instead of the 530 they had been expecting. The videographer who had already arrived to set up his equipment wound up filming the speeches, making a four-minute, straightforward, rather poignant video.
Thus, the campaign to turn lemons into LemonAID was launched.
A Silver Lining
JRA co-founder Marc Erlbaum said the annual event represents a chance to engage new people, who are introduced to the organization by various honorees or donors. “We missed that opportunity at the event last week because the event didn’t happen. However, we hope that with this new campaign, we will actually end up exposing a lot more people to our work.”
The organization had planned to raise between $50,000 and $100,000 last Sunday, with donations coming in part from raffle tickets and a silent auction. Both fundraising elements have now gone online.
Meanwhile, late last Sunday, Marc and his brother Daniel Erlbaum, chairman of the organization’s board, packed up the plentiful bounty and drove to St. John’s Hospice, a shelter in Center City. “We put everything in their refrigerators, and they told us it would be two days’ worth of food,” said Marc Erlbaum.
Ultimately, the food went to people who needed it more than those who would have been at the event, said Erlbaum, adding that the irony was not lost on him.
“You look for the silver lining, and this was a day when there were a lot of hungry people out on the streets or in the shelters, and we just happened to have food,” he said.
In the coming weeks, they intend to work with the mayor’s office and the city of Philadelphia to figure out what to do with the $20,000 of remaining food—the main courses—which were frozen and have yet to be distributed.
JRA co-founder Rabbi Menachem Schmidt was on his way to the event last week, but didn’t get there. He said he was proud of what the group at the hotel thought up and then accomplished. “The fact that they put it together so quickly was amazing,” he said.
This past Sunday, Dec. 15, when volunteers gathered at the JRA warehouse to participate in the regular monthly food distribution, they saw the video and heard the speeches that were going to be part of the canceled program. About 800 came out to help pack and distribute boxes, less than the usual 1,200 who normally pitch in. But a different snow and ice storm late Saturday afternoon kept many from venturing out the next morning.
“We’re going to try and get everyone to publicize this and get the word out,” stressed Erlbaum. “We would love for people to go to the website www.makinglemonaid and check out the story.”
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