March 5, 2015

A special group of volunteers gathered yesterday at our warehouse in Brooklyn to work a bustling assembly line filling up boxes with meals for Passover. Citymeals Board Member Samantha Boardman, Editor-at-Large of Harper's Bazaar Derek Blasberg, art dealer Sarah Hoover and stylist Kate Young joined Citymeals Executive Director Beth Shapiro in the warehouse to pack the holiday boxes.

Each package – filled with Kosher for Passover foods like poached salmon, beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, matzo, macaroons and grape juice – contains the equivalent of eight meals. In total, more than 4,100 boxes will be packed and delivered to frail aged members of the Jewish community. The packages are made possible by generous grants from EGL Charitable Foundation and The David Berg Foundation.

“Passover is a time for family and friends to gather together, but sadly, many of our Jewish meal recipients who have outlived family and friends will be celebrating alone,” Shapiro noted. “We hope these meals provide warm memories of holidays past. Thank you to Samantha, Derek, Sarah and Kate for making our homebound elderly a priority.”

The packages will be delivered well in advance of Passover, which begins at sundown on April 3rd, to ensure our meal recipients are prepared to observe the holiday. Deliveries to isolated older residents of Brooklyn and Queens begin today.

Watch press coverage from News 12 Brooklyn.

See a video showing how we prepared our homebound elderly for Passover.