BIJ in Action
TIKKUN OLAM
Our Congregation provides its members with many opportunities for social action. Our programs benefit women’s and teen shelters, foster children and homeless veterans, the homebound and the hungry. By reaching out to people in need, we not only help to repair the world, but also strengthen our Jewish identity and provide an important example of our values for our children.
Our Tikkun Olam Planning Committee is a joint effort of the members of the Southside Jewish Collaborative (made up of members from BIJ, Or Shalom, B’nai Emunah and Ner Tamid). Every third Thursday of the month (after our Lunch & Learn program) and the first Sunday of every other month, we come together to make sandwiches to be distributed to one of our three community partners (San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team, At the Crossroads Youth Services Program, and the San Francisco General Methadone Clinic) who make sure the food that we provide gets to those who need it. In less than one year we have made food to feed more than 1,000 people.
In addition, we have a group that regularly volunteers together at the San Francisco Food Bank the last Sunday of each month (except on Jewish holidays) to pack thousands of pounds of food to be distributed to soup kitchens, domestic violence shelters and individual families. With one in four people in the San Francisco Bay Area being food insecure, constantly having to make choices between buying food, paying rent and other necessities, the work we are doing makes a big difference to those in our community.
Please join us by contributing financial donations, non-perishable foods and/or your sandwich-making skills. One day, we pray, the need will no longer be there. For now, however, let’s come together as a community to do a small part to “repair the world” around us.
BIJ “Project-36” benefiting the SF Food Bank
This year, BIJ will again join with 21 other Bay Area synagogues to support the Bay Area Food Banks and their mission to end hunger in the Bay Area. The SF Food Bank plans to distribute special holiday meals to more than 30,000 families through its neighborhood food pantry network. For every $1 you donate, the Food Bank gives $6 of food! Online credit card donations may be made at www.sffoodbank.org/dinnerdrive OR Please make check payable to:San Francisco Food Bank and send it to BIJ