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Yad Eliezer is the largest anti-hunger agency in Israel, with an annual budget of more than $20 million that is funded by the donations of caring individuals.
Yad Eliezer began in 1980 in the kitchen of the Weisel family of Jerusalem. They prepared a food basket for a neighbor who could not feed her children, and were soon delivering monthly food baskets to hungry families. Yad Eliezer has now grown to encompass 15 primary economic and social service programs that impact tens of thousands of individuals.
Yad Eliezer's cadre of 10,000 volunteers enables the organization to maintain limited overhead and administrative expenses. Indeed, 95% of funds raised go directly to needy families. This achievement has earned Yad Eliezer the coveted "4-Star Exceptional" rating from Charity Navigator, which rates organizations based on how effectively and responsibly they utilize donations, and to what extent the charity is growing in terms of programs and services.
Yad Eliezer has always maintained that poverty is about more than food, that is but one symptom among the many layers of challenge that comprise “the cycle of poverty”:
• Unemployment of the family breadwinner may result in children dropping out of school, out of fear of their peers’ mockery or as a result of a home environment antithetical to study.
• Illness of one child may take precedence over feeding the others, leading to severe cases of undernourishment among children (especially babies).
• Parental abandonment or neglect leaves children emotionally and physically endangered, and may lead to criminal or socially dysfunctional behavior – or at the very “least,” despair.
Yad Eliezer's mandate is to help families cope with financial difficulties and to empower them to break through the cycle of poverty and achieve self-sufficiency.
Our objective is to combat poverty at its root, through an array of programs that provide critical short-term relief, while facilitating long-term recovery. Each component of Yad Eliezer's comprehensive welfare system – nationwide distribution of essential food, clothing and household items, job training, and adolescent mentoring programs – contributes toward economic recovery and social development.
Yad Eliezer does not subscribe to a "soup kitchen philosophy." We aim to normalize the family situation as much as possible, delivering food to the households themselves, where children can see their parents as providers.
Yad Eliezer is careful to confirm that recipients are in fact needy. We have a team in each neighborhood that verifies the condition of the family on an ongoing basis. The information is entered into Yad Eliezer's computerized database to track the status of each recipient.
Our food programs include monthly food boxes which provide a large supply of food staples to families, hot delivered meals for the sick and elderly, holiday meals for families, and baby formula for mothers who cannot nurse their infants.
We also have a unique program through which farmers donate annually more than $1 million of surplus fresh fruits and vegetables to poor families.
Our social services network includes a Big Brothers/Sisters program for 4,200 children of single-parent families who need guidance and love, an emergency fund for crisis situations, a wedding fund which caters thousands of wedding celebrations, and a job training program for the heads of low-income households.
Thanks to job training and other assistance, many families who were recipients of Yad Eliezer's food programs are now donors to Yad Eliezer.
What is Yad Eliezer's vision for the future? We have outgrown our current warehouse facilities and urgently require a larger space. The cost of building a food distribution center is $7.5 million. Yad Eliezer already has commitments from donors for $1.6 million and is now seeking contributions to cover the remaining funds necessary to create this exceptional multi-service center.
According to the Ministry of Social Affairs, one-third of Israel’s children now live below the poverty line. As government cutbacks shrink the safety net, and the ranks of the poor continue to swell, the number of families turning to Yad Eliezer increases with each passing day.
And through it all, Yad Eliezer continues to innovate programs to alleviate hunger, and give each Israeli the dignity and self-reliance they deserve. As Yad Eliezer's executive director, Dov Weisel, says: "Each month is its own miracle."
And it is all made possible through the donations of caring individuals around the world – individuals like you. You are the reason that Yad Eliezer is able to assist so many of Israel’s neediest families, and you are the reason that we can continue to touch ever more lives in the future.
Privacy Notice: Yad Eliezer will not trade or sell any donor's personal information to any entity unless it receives written permission from the donor.
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