Project H.O.P.E Finds Home for Passover Food
For more than 20 years, Project H.O.P.E. (Helping Our People Everywhere) at Temple Sinai has delivered both perishable and non-perishable food so area elderly and Holocaust survivors can enjoy a Passover meal.
But the coronavirus stopped the regular program in its tracks this year — social distancing prevented the hundreds of volunteers from delivering the food to some 750 recipients, program founder and coordinator Samuel Domsky said.
Problem is, about $20,000 in nonperishable food was ordered months in advance through George’s Market at Dreshertown — well before the terms “coronavirus” and “social distancing” were in the world’s lexicon. Domsky did say he was able to cancel the orders for perishable food, which have a much shorter lead time.
Still, there was the question of what to do with hundreds of cases of food.
The answer turned out to be donating the food to Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia Mitzvah Food Program, which serves much of the same clientele.
Novick Brothers owner Bill Novick helped deliver the food, Domsky said.
“We still got the food to where it was needed,” he said. “The project still served its purpose this year.”
Domsky said he wasn’t deterred by this year’s challenges.
“We’ll be back better and stronger in 2021,” he said.
Domsky started coordinating the effort in his garage in 1997 when local synagogues and supermarkets donated enough food for 75 families. It’s evolved into a three-month undertaking under the auspices of B’nai B’rith’s Liberty Region and become one of the signature events on Temple Sinai’s calendar.
Book’s Proceeds to Benefit HAMEC
Susie Dyshel Sommovilla of Elkins Park recently self-published a nonfiction account of her cousin’s Holocaust story, with the proceeds from sales going to the Holocaust Awareness Museum and Education Center of Philadelphia
“From Hans to Henry: A Holocaust Survivor’s Story,” which was published on lulu.com, tells the story of Henry Froehlich, who died in 2008 after a career as a photographer in the United States. The title refers to his name change upon arriving in the U.S.
