Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
Fran Held has always cared about homelessness, food insecurity and poverty. She worked on behalf of various organizations throughout her youth until one day taking up on her own and helping out where she could, albeit without any sort of registration or business card.
One day a little more than a decade and a half ago, however, she got a call that helped her realize that this is more than a passion for her — it’s a mission.
“I had one person who called me and said, ‘I heard that you’re the lady that will help me when no one else will,’” she said. “And that was a turning point for me, because I realized that I was well positioned — not financially, but personally — to meet the need.”
Since then, Held has poured everything into Mitzvah Circle, a nonprofit she started in 2009 aimed at offering hope and restoring dignity in those affected by poverty through aid and volunteer work grounded in Jewish values.
Mitzvah Circle has created initiatives that improve day care and school attendance, as well as employment security. It also works to reduce food insecurity via donations of food and provisions like pots, pans and utensils. On an annual basis, it serves more than 73,000 families, distributing more than four-and-a-half million items. That includes more than three million diapers and 800,000 sanitary supplies. The organization works with nearly 300 partner organizations and more than 200 referral agencies. Each year, more than 4,200 different individuals volunteer for the organization. They work with nearly 400 social workers across the Commonwealth.
Held said that misconceptions around her clientele are common. While it might sound obvious to some, she said that it is important to remind people that those she helps did not choose their situation and definitely do not want it to continue. She added that the vast majority are close to security, but just need a little aid.
“Of the people we serve, 70% of them are employed. We’ve given them food or shoes or period supplies or things for their children … so we try to make sure that we provide items but also hope, dignity and case management — all of those things, too,” Held said.
While the organization’s name and values are Jewish, much of its clientele and volunteer base is not. Held said the organization works with synagogues, of course, but also churches, mosques and other institutions for people of varying religious backgrounds, ethnicities and ages. She said that, even as the world becomes a more tenuous place for Jewish people, the interactions she has had with other communities have reinforced her belief in unity.
Getting the organization off the ground was hard, but Held said that the community rallied around her from the beginning. While she now has a number of significant donors and has been awarded government grants, Mitzvah Circle started off small.
“People would ask if we had big funders, and I would tell them that we didn’t. We had real people who would give us $10 and come and volunteer,” she said.
They have truly come far. This year, Mitzvah Circle opened a new 27,000-square-foot headquarters that Held calls the organization’s “forever home.”
“I’m hoping that people will see the amount of work that we’ve done to help so many people and want to help too,” she said. “That’s how we build a better world, right? With one act of kindness at a time.”
Held makes the point to say that, in order to make an impact, you don’t have to reorganize your entire life around the cause like she did. One act, donation or volunteer session can make a difference.
“People say, ‘Gosh, that [one thing] isn’t too overwhelming; I can do that,’” she said. “People might only stay for a [few] hours, but now another family has clean clothes, sheets on the bed and dishes on the table. People say, ‘I could do that twice a year.’ So when it encourages and inspires others to serve the community, that’s what it is really about.”
Held said that Jewish values will always guide her work, but that it remains essential that the organization — and the community at large — remember what really matters.
“The person standing before you who can’t afford shoes or pads or diapers never wants to be in that situation, and when people hear that and understand it, it cuts across every divide,” she said. “I don’t serve someone because they’re Jewish; I serve them because I’m Jewish.”