“When you are asked in the world to come, “What was your work?” and you answer, “I fed the hungry,” you will be told, “This is the gate of Hashem, enter into it, you who have fed the hungry.”
Midrash Psalms 118:1
At Shoresh our mission is to inspire our community to act as responsible stewards of the earth by nurturing a sense of awe and connection through Jewish experiential education and action. One of the ways we encourage responsible stewardship is through our Tzedakah From the Ground Up initiatives.
For the 6th year in a row, GTA food banks have seen over one million visits. Within the Jewish community, more than 24,000 Toronto Jews are living below the poverty line. The number of vulnerable community members is steadily growing, with the majority of them lacking access to fresh, local, organic produce. Shoresh is committed to improving this situation by literally growing tzedakah from the ground up.
Throughout the 2017 growing season, Shoresh grew 500 lbs of local, organic vegetables, fruits and herbs that was donated to Chasdei Kaduri, the Jewish Food Bank and clients from Jewish Family and Child. We did this with the support of Mazon, the Shulich Foundation, donors, community organizations, volunteers and all of the worms and bees that help our gardens grow.
Jonathan Tebeka, Executive Director of Chasdei Kaduri
After10 years of growing tzedakah from the ground up, we’ve learned that it truly takes a community to feed our community. We need work together to end hunger and poverty in our community. With 2017 behind us, we are looking forward to expanding our growing spaces and growing even more organic, local produce for tzedakah in 2018.
Join our efforts by becoming part of the Tzedakah Garden Crew, a group of volunteers who get together Wednesday afternoons at the Kavanah Garden to learn how to grow food and give it away.
For more information about Shoresh and our work bridging Jewish living with environmental stewardship, please visit www.shoresh.ca.