MILWAUKEE – The Jewish Community Pantry, 2900 W. Center St., provides food and services to those in need – even as demand for help has increased and government assistance has withered. Meanwhile, the pantry is working on plans to expand.
The Jewish Community Pantry is a program of the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, but it wouldn’t be possible without help from the community. Volunteers put out produce, unpack boxes, sort shopping bags and interact with the public, among other tasks. It’s a mammoth operation. The pantry serves more than 20,000 people annually.
“It’s a mitzvah to volunteer and help other people,” said Jonah Geller, chief innovation officer for the JCC, referring also to the Jewish mantra, “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.”
Yet Geller notes there can be an additional benefit of doing the work, beyond the truly important altruistic goals. It can be a connecting point: “Community members meet other Jewish people, and the conversations there ensue about what is it like to keep kosher or live in the Jewish community. What’s going on in Israel? Or with antisemitism?”
Increased need
In Chronicle interviews with multiple people in the Jewish community in recent years, particularly those who volunteer or work in food and poverty assistance, this point has been a constant: Needs have increased.
“Two years ago, we saw a 30% increase in the number of people served. Now this past year, we saw another 15% increase,” said Heidi Gould, director of the Jewish Community Pantry. She said that federal assistance initiated during the pandemic has dissipated. “We’re seeing a steady increase in need, with also simultaneously, the food banks being strained and not getting that same level of federal support and amount of food that they were getting during COVID. So we have fewer resources coming in as a result.”
The Hunger Task Force and Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin both support the Jewish Community Pantry “heavily,” Gould said. But their great support can’t overcome the fact that it’s now more costly or difficult to obtain frozen chicken, beef and other needed items.
Thus, today’s funding and grant writing can get more focused on providing food. Gould said some things were easier to accomplish in the past, when the need for food was less pronounced: “We did a car seat drive for a lot of our guests who had babies and kids in the car with no car seat. We had a lot of community backpack events before school.”
Support for the Jewish Community Pantry comes from many donors, including large scale and anonymous ones, and grants. Among the supporters is the local Jewish Women’s Endowment Fund, administered through Women’s Philanthropy of Milwaukee Jewish Federation. The Northwestern Mutual Foundation and others provide needed funding to partner organizations that work with the Jewish Community Pantry. Volunteer Rich Konz, who manages the Jewish Community Pantry warehouse, credited Trader Joe’s at Bayshore Mall with providing “a great assortment of food,” along with greatly appreciated food donations from Breadsmith, summertime farmers’ markets and others.
Dreams of expansion
Located in the central city and largely serving that community, the pantry offers services unrelated to food, like a recent voter drive. The Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network has provided services on-site, including blood tests, blood pressure checks and nutrition education.
“We don’t see ourselves as simply providing food,” Geller said. “What we’re trying to do is have a more complex and robust effort to serve a community with much broader goals, whether it’s solve hunger or help to the extent individuals want help or need help – and that can be through culinary advice, education, finance, medical, or whatever we can do to be helpful.”
But space can be an issue for expanding that kind of assistance, and Gould wants a much larger footprint.
“We rent this from the City of Milwaukee,” said Gould, interviewing at the facility, “and so our goal is to have a more permanent space, where not only we can do this work we’re currently doing, but expand the services we offer to the community.”
This could include added housing, legal and mental health resources, among others.
The goal, Gould said, is more than ever, to “create a true community space.”
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How to help
– Volunteers needed
– Donations needed
– Visit JccMilwaukee.org.
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