TSQ Feeds Over 650 Families This Pesach

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Tomchei Shabbos of Queens saw an increase of over 200 families from last Pesach, due to rising costs forcing working families to seek supplemental assistance.

This past Sunday morning, March 26, Tomchei Shabbos of Queens held its Pesach food package distribution, serving 650 local frum families. The distribution, based out of its warehouse and massive tent, operated with ease thanks to the outpouring of volunteers and dedicated staff, under the leadership of longtime President Shimi Pelman, and Reb Yitzchok Katz, and his family. Appreciation is extended to Met Council on Jewish Poverty for their continued support. Special acknowledgment is given to David Greenfield, Chief Executive Officer; Jessica Chait, Managing Director of Food Programs; Aaron Cyperstein, Managing Director of Legal & External Affairs; and Benjamin Zaientz, Agency Relations Manager of Food Programs. Yehuda Weinberg, Director of Operations for TSQ; and Andrew Blustein, director of the Sunday distribution, are acknowledged for their care and diligence.

The distribution was organized over many weeks, with recent evenings filled with devoted volunteers handling the intake of pallets and boxing of products. Pesach is the opportune time to help others ease the burden of financial struggles. “The Sunday delivery routes included hundreds of stops, with volunteers coming in from Great Neck, New Rochelle, Scarsdale, West Hempstead, and the many neighborhoods of Queens,” explained Pelman. “At Tomchei Shabbos of Queens, we are grateful to the acknowledgement of our elected officials who joined the distribution to see their generous grants at work.”

Met Council is accustomed to handling unforeseen issues in the food pantry distribution arena. Last year, products saw COVID-related delays. Mah Nishtanah... This year, due to inflation and an overall increase in prices, more than 650 families required TSQ intervention. “The demand is greater than ever before, especially for working families who have quietly come forward for vital assistance for Yom Tov essentials ahead of Pesach,” explained David Greenfield, CEO of Met Council. “Most working people’s income have stayed the same, and wages in general have barely gone up for those fortunate to have employment. Yet, the cost of products is up between 20-40 percent. This is an increase to a point that we have never seen before in the history of Met Council.” Greenfield went on to detail some of the efforts taken at his organization. “For these reasons, we are working overtime this year. We have over 200 distributions before Pesach throughout the New York region. The Tomchei Shabbos of Queens distribution is certainly the largest in the borough, but unfortunately the need is greater than ever simply because of the costs that have risen and the fact that wages have not caught up with the drastic increases.” Greenfield was not shy on addressing policymakers. “It is a big frustration, because at the end of the day, it is very easy to be a policymaker in Washington, D.C., and say, ‘Let's increase interest rates,’ but the inflation is really killing working class people like we have never seen before, making for the starkest difference this year than we have ever seen over the last 20 years that we have been distributing food in Met Council.”

The price increases on poultry items like eggs and chicken have created a whole new cost for Met Council. “We have not seen that products have regularized, but we have seen some tremendous people stepping up,” expressed Greenfield as we walked over to a pallet of eggs. “There are stickers on the boxes of eggs, notating that they have been honorably donated by Elliot P. Gibber of Deb El Food Products.” Their company designed the world’s most modern egg drying plant and now are the largest egg producers in the country. “We called them this year and said, ‘Look, the cost of eggs has doubled, and we cannot afford to give it out like we have done in years past.’ The Gibbers donated a half a million dollars’ worth of eggs for our distributions. People in the community are stepping up in a very big way, and we should feel very good about these acts of generosity.”

The Sunday event included the participation of honorable individuals, including Congress Member Grace Meng; District Attorney Melinda Katz; NY State Senators Leroy Comrie and Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr.; Assembly Members Andrew Hevesi, and David Weprin; New York City Council Members James Gennaro, Linda Lee, Lynn Schulman, and Sandra Ung; Pesach Osina, Jewish liaison to Adrienne Adams, Speaker of NYC Council; Commanding Officer Captain Jeremy R. Kivlin, NYPD’s 102nd Precinct; Rabbi Daniel Pollack, Jewish liaison to 102nd Precinct; David Steinberg of NORPAC; Evelyn Gong, candidate for Civil Court judge; Rabbi Avrohom Hecht, Executive Director, Project LEAD; Israel Peskowitz, Director of Community Affairs, Chazaq; Francine Raubvogel, Chief of Staff, Consulate General of Israel - New York; Alan Sherman, Community Advisor; and Yaakov Serle, co-publisher of the Queens Jewish Link and Bukharian Jewish Link; and Rabbi Mayer Waxman, Executive Director, QJCC.

Tomchei Shabbos of Queens, which was founded in the early 1970s, continues to deliver to needy families wherever Jews need their services. The operations include deliveries to Bayside, Flushing, Forest Hills, Hillcrest, Jackson Heights, Jamaica, Kew Gardens, Kew Gardens Hills, Sunnyside, and Rego Park. To help deliver packages on Wednesday evenings, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 718-850-8070.

 By Shabsie Saphirstein