Edited by: TJVNews.com

In the latest episode of ‘Inspiration for the Nation’ podcast, where Yaakov Langer of Living L’Chaim engages in a profound conversations with some of the most globally impactful individuals, he had the opportunity to sit down with New York City Mayor Eric Adams to discuss a variety of topics. During the most recent episode, Langer asked Mayor Adams what his favorite mitzvah is. Without any hesitation, the mayor offered a spontaneous response. The mayor passionately highlighted the Masbia Soup Kitchen Network as his favorite organization.

During the conversation, the Mayor emphasized his longstanding familiarity with Masbia and its commendable efforts in providing food assistance, not only within the Jewish community but also extending support to others in need. He recounted a significant event where Masbia stepped in to aid individuals affected by a fire on New Year’s Eve in East New York, demonstrating the organization’s dedication to serving the broader community.

For those not familiar with this exemplary organization, Masbia is a not-for-profit charity organization that was founded in April 2005 with one goal in mind – that no one should go to sleep hungry, even if they could not afford a meal that day. In 2009, after the great recession, Masbia opened a number of locations throughout Brooklyn.  The expansion was even mentioned on NBC’s Saturday Night Live comedy show. Masbia was actually featured in People Magazine in 2014 as a “restaurant without a cash register”.

After a couple of years, Masbia staff started giving people raw food to take home. It quickly turned into a weekly food package distribution operation that now dwarfs in volume the amount of food served at the restaurant. Now Masbia operates two programs, one known as Soup-Kitchen, where people are served ready-to-eat dinners, and the other as Food-Pantry, where people receive raw food ingredient packages to take home with them.

A few hundred families visit Masbia every day at each of their three locations. That means about 1,000 families a day and 5,000 families a week received much needed food relief from Masbia. In addition to people visiting Masbia to receive these services, Masbia is venturing to offer home deliveries with the support of the DoorDash food delivery service. Masbia also activates a relief squad that responds to emergencies beyond the existing neighborhoods that they operate in.

The meal, which is served at the Soup Kitchen locations by volunteer waiters, includes a starter salad, beverage, soup, a protein (such as chicken or fish), two hot side dishes, and dessert. Masbia places a great emphasis on serving their clients with dignity and respect, seen both in the food they serve and in the restaurant-like setting in which it is served. Providing these meals requires immense resources including a full-time kitchen and chef, hundreds of weekly volunteers to prepare food, greeting the guests and serving the clients.  Masbia’s hot dinner service caters to the old and frail, the homeless, and people who are in crises situation with no means to cook for themselves. They serve roughly 2,000 hot dinners each week out of their three locations.

The gold standard of an emergency food package is to include enough food for three meals for three days for every member of the family. Masbia models their packages on the MyPlate meal size recommendations, which include grains, fruits and vegetables, and protein. The package size varies relative to family size. The packages cater more to women and children who have a home to cook in but have no means to buy raw ingredients.

Masbia provides their clients with fresh food, versus canned or processed food. The noble organization also goes out of its way to procure fresh produce, including picking it up from local farmers’ markets. Protein can be as cheap as peanut butter and beans, or as expensive as chicken or beef.

Masbia is a grass-roots, hand-to-mouth organization where every dollar donated makes it into someone’s stomach in less than two weeks. Everything that is done at Masbia is done only because tens of thousands of people come together and share resources to make it happen.

In Short: Masbia Soup Kitchen Network provides emergency food to people in need due to financial status or because of natural disasters via ready-to-eat nutritious meals and raw groceries, free of charge.

Each person reading this can now play a major role in this tremendous Kiddush Hashem and feed so many of their brothers and sisters for Purim. For donation options and how to find out more about volunteering, please visiting:  Masbia.org/Purim