For over a decade the WRT community has come together to provide food for participants of HOPE Community Services in New Rochelle. Historically, Cooking4HOPE met in the WRT kitchen on the last Monday of each month to prepare food for about 125 people: 9 trays of lasagna, 3 trays of fresh salad, 3 trays of vegetables, and a few trays of chocolate chip cookies. In addition, volunteers packed approximately 125 lunch bags that would be sent with the hot food, so that the recipients of the hot meal in the HOPE dining hall would also get a lunch bag on the way out to take home for the next day.
Cooking4HOPE volunteers range from age 2-94!!! It is a great opportunity for families and individuals to help a neighbor in need. Volunteers serve in many capacities including shoppers, bakers, cooks, packers and drivers (to deliver the bags).
Please consider volunteering for a leadership role in Cooking4Hope. Contact sharon.stiefel@wrtemple.org to volunteer or learn more.
Cooking4HOPE is funded by WRT’s Hungry and Homeless Fund, so please continue to support these efforts by contributing to the Fund.
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Answering the call during COVID:
When the WRT kitchen closed in the spring of 2020 due to COVID, the Cooking4HOPE team not only continued to provide meals for the participants of HOPE Community Services, the team stepped it up and began preparing weekly lunch bags in addition to buying monthly hot dinners.
The Cooking4HOPE team expanded from shoppers, cooks, and packers to include bakers as well. At the height of the Cooking4HOPE volunteerism, the WRT community was able to pack 700-800 bags per week. As of December 2021, WRT had provided over 45,000 lunch bags to HOPE Services. In addition, prior to Thanksgiving, Cooking4HOPE provided supermarket vouchers and cash donations to Feeding Westchester, HOPE and Mt. Vernon’s social service department – altogether providing about 200 turkeys and Thanksgiving dinner to our neighbors in Westchester.
