By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Today, 13 million
children and 22 million adults across the country are
preparing to celebrate the holiday season the same way they
prepare for every other day hungry and needing help
getting food for themselves and their families.
A small
consortium of local individuals have banded together for a
second consecutive year to feed the hungry all over
Washington by holding a benefit for Mazon, an international
Jewish organization dedicated to fighting hunger.
The Night
of a Thousand Latkes is a Hanukkah party open to everyone
in the city. The young and old, the rich and the poor, the
Jewish and non-Jewish are all invited to feast on a
sumptuous dinner and latkes with sour cream and apple sauce,
while every donation made goes directly and fully to Mazon.
Matzah Mamma
Catering will donate all of their services for the evening
and provide the food at cost. Shalom Ensemble, a klezmer
music group, will entertain the large crowd that is expected
to show up at the Scottish Rite Temple on Seattles Capitol
Hill. The Hanukkah party runs from 5-8 p.m.
Tzedakah
is at the heart of the Jewish tradition, said Rabbi James
Mirel, one of the organizers of the party and the upright
bassist for Shalom Ensemble. This is a neutral event. It is
not a synagogue-related thing. It is an individual effort.
This community Hanukkah party is open to all and is a
seamless connection between fun and tzedakah. Its
one of those feel-good kind of events.
JTNews is a
co-sponsor of the event.
Mazon recently
awarded $43,000 to four of the leading hunger-fighting
organizations in Washington. The grants went to the
Northwest Federation of Community Organizations in Seattle,
Lifelong AIDS Alliance in Seattle, SeaShare in Bainbridge
Island and Food Lifeline in Shoreline.
Mazon has granted
over $3 million to 300 hunger-fighting programs throughout
the United States in 2004.
Founded in 1985
and headquartered in Los Angeles, Mazon allocates donations
from Jewish communities across the U.S. and then disperses
them to the hungry of all faiths and denominations.
In Washington
alone, 12 percent are food insecure, said Dr. H. Eric
Schockman, president of Mazon, who will be in Seattle for
the Dec. 12 event.
When an
individual or family is food insecure, it means that a
household or an individual may or may not have access to
safe or nutritionally adequate food on a regular basis.
Washington is
14th on a national list of households within a state that
are food insecure.
In our nation of
plenty, millions of Americans struggle to scrape together
the bare necessities they need to survive, he said.
SeaShare, an
organization that harvests the leftover catch from some of
the top seafood producers in the country and re-distributes
it to the hungry, is a Mazon grant recipient.
They encourage
our role as advocates in the problem of hunger in the U.S.,
said Tuck Donnelly, executive director of SeaShare.
Weve worked
with Alaska fisherman since 1992 to let SeaShare obtain and
distribute the seafood they dont use around the country.
Mazon gives us an unrestricted operating grant for office
operating expenses. It enables us to go to work and have a
staff.
Donnelly, who
worked in the fishing industry for many years, got the idea
for SeaShare when he saw how much fish was wasted.
The companies
really like helping, their employees like it and really feel
good about it, added Donnelly. Its good for the industry
and its good for the companies.
Mazon grants
SeaShare $15, 000 in each year of their multi-year grant.
Donnelly will also be attending this years Mazon event in
Seattle.
Last year, the
first Night of a Thousand Latkes was so successful that
event planners hope to more than double their donations to
Mazon this year.
Schockman wants
to turn this idea into something that synagogues and
community groups can duplicate all over the country.
Id like to
thank the local community for making this a significant
event and for making a difference through tikkun,
said Schockman, referring to the Hebrew word of renewal or
repair.
Ive taken this
to my board of directors and discussed how wed like to
replicate this Seattle model all over the country and in
over 2,000 synagogues in the U.S. who are partners with
Mazon.
Schockman is more
than passionate about the growing hunger crisis in the U.S.
He sees the big picture and he warns it will take more than
food alone.
Unfortunately,
said Schockman, the U.S. [Department of Agriculture] has
told us that over the last three years hunger has spiked in
America among all populations, rural and urban, young and
old. This is a persistent and growing epidemic and we know
its getting worse. Theres not enough supply to meet the
demand.
According to
Schockman, aid to nutritional programs in America are just
over 1 percent of the entire U.S. budget. He believes that
if donors could put $10 billion toward hunger in the next
five years, by 2010 the current number of hungry Americans
could be cut in half.
In the end, we
cant food bank our way out of hunger in America because
its a distribution issue not a production issue, said
Schockman. It is also a policy issue to make food a right,
not a privilege.