Yesterday my wife and I decided to take a walk in the park since it was nice in the afternoon. As we neared the park, we saw that there was a whole line of cars waiting to get in and it looked like the whole park was taken over by an event. It turns out that we happened upon the pre-Pesach food distribution run by an organiztion called Chasdei Lev. I have never seen anything like this. My wife has participated in the local Tomchei Shabbos food packing before Pesach, which is big endeavor, but that was nothing like this. There were huge trailers that had been brought in and forklifts running here and there lining up pallet after pallet of goods and an army of adults and kid volunteers coordinating things. It looked like each order was individually wrapped on a pallet and waiting to be picked up. There was everything from laundry detergent and paper goods to meat and fish. If you check their website you will see that this organization allows Rebbeim and Morahs from schools across the country to place orders at super discounted prices so that families can meet all their Y"T needs without breaking the bank and without taking it as a direct handout. The chessed of giving the food out was incredible enough, but the icing on the cake was when it was all finished I saw them going through the park and picking up the scraps of garbage that had fallen here and there. I think they may have left the park cleaner than the way they found it.
Sometimes you give $ to an organization and you scratch your head and wonder where the money goes. B'einei chazisi that there must have been a small fortune of food given out. When I got home I checked and found they have a 4 star rating, 94%, on Charity Navigator. This organization has been around awhile, but I have never been aware of it or seen it in action until my chance park visit. This is not a paid advertisement, and don't I know anyone involved in this organization, but all I can say is it looked like real chessed to me.
I do not know every person involved in the organization. But the ones that I do know, ashrei chelkam, are role models of mankind's highest aspirations in bein adam lechaveiro.
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