Mercaz HaChesed Sderot
If Israel is close to your hearts, then please join us as partners in the important work, which we are doing to support and assist needy families in the city of Sderot.
There is little doubt that this work saves many lives!
Please make your contribution to help and ensure that the important activities of the Mercaz HaChesed may continue in Sderot.
Mercaz Chesed Sderot was founded in 2000 with the aim of caring for the people of Sderot as well as the residents of the towns and villages in the region and thereby helps satisfy the urgent need for centralized and organized support for the city's needy families. Over the years our work has expanded and reached out to cover many different charitable areas. The Hessed Center is a not-for-profit organization that is based on the work of volunteers who bring their enthusiasm to these projects. We at the Hessed Center believe that whoever saves a single soul in Israel is regarded as sustaining an entire world, and so we spare no effort as together with significant divine help we aim to see that every person receives the help that he or she deserves, in an appropriate manner, with a bright face and much love of Israel. In this endeavor, we coordinate our work with the city's welfare authorities in order to ensure that the fitting help reaches the right families. This work goes on and on …
The Hessed Center incorporates the following areas of assistance:
1. Distribution of food baskets – Some 670 families in Sderot as well as those in the towns and villages in the Gaza Strip area receive food baskets every week. The baskets contain in-season fruit and vegetables as well as basic food commodities. About half the food baskets are handed out at a special distribution center while the rest is delivered to the homes of those needy individuals who are unable to come in person to the center. In addition to the weekly allocations, special efforts are made at holiday times (Rosh Hashanah – New Year – and the festivals celebrated in the fall, Purim, and Passover) to make a substantial distribution of food on a much wider scale and thereby ensure that the families in Sderot will have all they need to celebrate the festivals appropriately and experience the true holiday spirit.
2. Soup Kitchen - The Sderot Hessed Center runs a restaurant to provide a nutritional response as required on a daily basis. The kitchen serves a hot and nutritious meal for about 80 diners, most of whom are senior citizens, especially those who have been left all alone in the world; Holocaust survivors; and the handicapped. A nominal charge is made for this meal with the aim of maintaining the diner's self-respect. The soup kitchen itself is clean, tidy and designed to look like a regular restaurant.
The atmosphere in this restaurant is welcoming and shows respect to its patrons just like family, and those same people who lack the means to eat warm and nutritious food during the week can now enjoy every day an hour or so of relaxation and contentment.
3. Clothing store – This is a second-hand clothing store, which is run by the volunteers of the Hessed Center and offers for sale clothes, shoes, and other accessories. The clothes are donated by well-known companies or collected by the local residents, sorted and sold at a nominal price, a policy which shows respect for the customers who come there to buy their clothes.
4. A charity furniture store - This store offers second-hand furniture, which was donated to the Hessed Center, collected by the Center's volunteers and distributed to the needy and families on low incomes. In special cases, the Center succeeds in obtaining new furniture and these are allocated to needy families. Until recently we had at our disposal a large warehouse where we stored an impressive collection of a wide variety of furniture, both new and second-hand items. Unfortunately, owing to the warehouse's financial difficulties, we had to close this store and nowadays volunteers help transfer the furniture directly from the donor to the person or family who needs them. We are looking for ways to re-open the furniture warehouse so that it can operate fully and on a broad scale as previously.
5. A charity store for tables and chairs – These chairs and tables are made available for festivities and celebrations as well as for mourners, heaven forbid.
6. Yad Sarah – Running a branch of Yad Sarah in Sderot with love by the volunteers of the Hessed Center for the welfare of the community in Sderot. (Yad Sarah provides medical equipment – wheelchairs, crutches etc. – for the sick and injured.)
7. ZAKA – For the identification of disaster victims.
For further information: Please call Amichai Amosi at 052-4314483. Link to short movie presentation entitled "The Sderot Hessed Center": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAR_Qgnfb4k For donations: Bank Poaley Agudat Israel (PAGY) (52), Netivot Branch (173). Account No. 6734 in the name of "Sderot Hessed Center". Payment by Credit Card – by telephone to: 1-700-555-474 or 052-4314483 (Avichai).
"Without philanthropy, the world cannot be sustained for even a single hour"