Tracey Specter, 64, remembers taking cans of food to her childhood synagogue in Seattle to donate to people in need.

Leaders at the shul asked families to help if they could. Specter’s parents obliged.

Later, when Specter was a young mother of her own four daughters, she had them do the same during similar efforts at Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley, the family’s congregation.

“I think having enough to eat is a basic Jewish value. What comes to mind is tzedakah. Feeding the hungry to me is a responsibility, a duty,” Specter explained.

This Jewish value motivated Specter to become board chair of the Share Food Program, a regional initiative that organizes food distributions to hundreds of thousands of Philadelphia-area residents each month. It operates across community pantries, food distribution sites and community refrigerators, according to sharefoodprogram.org.

As board chair, the Gladwyne resident plays a leading role in raising funds for the organization and charting its big-picture direction.

Post-COVID-19, during a period of inflation and in the wake of cuts to SNAP benefits, food insecurity is a growing problem in the Philadelphia region and beyond.

One in four children in Philadelphia is now food insecure, according to Specter, and the problem is getting worse. A December 2025 U.S. Department of Agriculture report found that 13.7% of U.S. households, or nearly 48 million people, lack access to an affordable, nutritious diet, the highest percentage in a decade.

“There is such a need. We’re trying to do what we can,” Specter said.

The problem, according to Specter, is all over, even in places you wouldn’t expect. It’s prevalent in affluent communities like Bryn Mawr, school districts like Lower Merion and at local universities.

“All the universities have food banks, and a lot of people are visiting them,” Specter said. “In Narberth, they have a food bank. In Bryn Mawr, they have a food bank. They raise a lot of money, and they have a lot of food for people. And these are the wealthiest communities that have this problem.”

The Share Food Program serves the five-county Philadelphia area and has warehouses in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties. More than 1,000 people volunteer with Share each year through their companies and organizations.

Share partners with organizations all over the area to distribute food, including the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia through its Mitzvah Food Program and the Jewish Relief Agency.

“I think it’s a basic Jewish value to help those in need. But also that basic right of having enough to eat, it’s so important to Jews,” Specter said.

The Gladwyne resident is a veteran of the nonprofit ecosystem in the Philadelphia area. Over the last two decades, she has dedicated significant time to the boards of prominent Jewish organizations, including Maccabi USA, the Jewish Federation and Perelman Jewish Day School, where she also served as board chair.

Throughout her years of working with nonprofits, and regardless of the type of organization she was serving, Specter has encountered food insecurity.

“I just noticed that it always kind of came up as an issue. The SNAP benefits gave enough for food, but there was always this gap, especially at the end of the month when families didn’t have enough to eat,” she said. “Even at Perelman Jewish Day School, there were kids who were having problems with food insecurity.”

When Pope Francis visited Philadelphia in September 2015, nonprofit leaders in the area, including Specter, organized community table discussions about the issue. Through this effort, Specter met Steveanna Wynn, then the executive director of Share.

“They asked me to get more involved there, and eventually I did,” she said.

She joined the board in 2019 and became board chair in June 2020. Specter believes that food insecurity is “solvable.”

“We have enough food in our country. We need to change the distribution system. That’s what Share is doing. Share is trying to get as much donated food as possible. We try to rescue food not just from the grocery stores. If they get it to us, we can redistribute it to people who need it,” she explained.

The Har Zion member feels grateful to be able to work toward solving this problem.

“I feel very grateful to be in this food insecurity space, knowing that the work that I do is helping our community. It really feels meaningful to me,” she said.

jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com