1. As the person responsible for paying the bills at Masbia Soup Kitchen Network, providing over 2,000,000 meals a year, the best way to assist me and the thousands of volunteers who feed the people in need is by making a simple monetary online donation. To find out how your donation becomes part of the 2,000,000 meals, click here.
(Courtesy of Masbia)
2. In addition to your donation, you can get Amazon to donate to us as well, at zero cost to you. Before you do any holiday shopping, sign up with Amazon Smile and 0.5% of what you order on Amazon will be donated to Masbia. Please sign up today even if you are not planning to shop right now.
3. While you do your holiday shopping, you might want to consider Masbia’s Chef Ruben Diaz on your gift shopping list. Commercial restaurants constantly need to replenish equipment. Our kitchens are heavily used to create over 2,000,000 meals every year, which creates enormous wear and tear. Here is our Chef’s equipment wishlist. Click here to check it out. A friend of mine created a special website, called MyFiki, to promote Amazon wishlist donations. Click here to find our wishlist on that site. Let me know which one you find more user friendly: info@masbia.org.
4. For the first time since we have been around for over 10 years, we will start having Shabbat meals at the newly reopened Masbia Boro Park. I have created a separate Amazon wishlist for the items needed to be able to serve people with dignity on Shabbat and throughout the week. Click here to check it out on Amazon. For the same list via MyFiki, click here.
5. Speaking about gifts, Masbia’s website has its own store. We are now offering high-end, farm-to-table, extra-virgin olive oil that will be shipped from the farm in Oregon to anyone who makes a donation of $200. For a donation of $1,000, you will receive all 5 different breeds of olives. That will for sure make the most braggable olive oil you ever had or gifted to a friend. Check it out over here. Don’t forget, Chanukah is coming up.
6. Re-purposing old furniture is very chic these days. I am sure you will agree that the most highly regarded piece of wood would be from a table that fed thousands of charity meals to the needy. The Talmud likens that table to the altar of the Temple. Imagine having a mezuzah on steroids, where the covenant with God is not only that you put a parchment of Shema on your doorpost, but the case is made out of Masbia tables. This very limited edition of mezuzah cases, carved by artist Alex Aronov, was added to our store last week. For a donation of $3,600, we will send you one of those. Check out the store here.
7. The hardest one to mention here is this one. Masbia of Queens is currently homeless. Instead of feeding people in a restaurant style setting, our staff and volunteers hang around in front of our boarded up, used-to-be facility to hand out heat meals to-go. Renovation of our new facility has stalled due to lack of finances. We have put together a dedication campaign to help us raise the funds needed to continue renovating and operating our soon to be Forest Hills facility. Options start at $25 a month to $180,000 for location naming rights. Click here to see the campaign.
8. We now also accept donations in stock. It’s a win-win situation: Masbia gets a nice contribution (we usually sell shares immediately), while you, the donor, can write off the gift and avoid paying capital gains taxes on the stock gains. Brokerage: Revere Securities, Masbia OTC#:0750, Masbia account#:75544352. Or Contact Masbia’s financial adviser, Ronald Geffen, 212-688-2350.
Thank you so much for the long read and for helping us out. Again, for a quick and simple donation, click here.
