BY LIDAR GRAVÉ-LAZI – JPost.com
Photos: Israel Bardugo
Labor and social Services Minister Haim Katz announced the launch of a national initiative for food security estimated at NIS 60 million on Monday.
The program, run in collaboration with Colel Chabad and Leket Israel – the National Food Bank, will award some 10,800 needy families suffering from food insecurity a NIS 500 per month prepaid card to purchase food.
“Today we are launching a new initiative whose aim is to enable families in need of nutritional security all year round and in a respectable manner,” Katz said at a press conference before launching the initiative in the Knesset.
The program will start off as a pilot beginning this month with the aim of replacing the current system of providing food baskets for the needy only on the holidays; it will instead provide ongoing monthly assistance.
As such, families will receive a prepaid card of which NIS 250 can be used to buy food and necessities in grocery stores, with the exception of tobacco and alcohol, while the additional NIS 250 will be used to buy rescued food, such as fruit and vegetables, which will be delivered directly to the homes of needy families.
Some 36 municipalities will participate in the initiative for the pilot run, including Jerusalem, Beersheba, Safed, Baka al-Gharbiya, Kfar Kasim and Sderot.
“This is an initiative that includes all segments of the population from all over the country – North, South, Center, haredim [ultra-Orthodox] and secular, Jews and Arabs,” Katz said.
He said he hoped the pilot initiative would succeed and prove useful so that the project could be expanded to include more underprivileged families throughout the country.
Mendy Blau, the director of Colel Chabad, the longest serving social-welfare organization in Israel, operating for 226 years, called the initiative “a real upheaval.”
“This is the first time that there is a program of such a large magnitude built in the right manner, respectable and respecting [of the needy] that puts at the center the family in need of assistance,” he said.
Blau thanked the welfare minister on behalf of the underprivileged families for his “support for this huge and important project.”
Kudos to Lazer Avtzon and Shalom Glitzenstein of Global Jewish Assistance for conceptualizing the FOOD CARD program since 2005 They first established Bank Mazon – Israel’s National Food Bank in 2000 which was later given over to LEKET, the other national partner in this program And now, the FOOD CARD moves on to the next level with the recognition by the Israeli Government and other major mega charities working in Israel. The needs are tremendous and tens of thousands of additional families still need help, and hopefully more organizations will soon switch over to the FOOD CARD which is more… Read more »
Its a good start and very nice but, 250 shekel is $67, sorry but that’s about two suppers a month they need to increase it per family
This is very good. Over 10,000 families with food security! Brings tears to my eyes.