A Day of Fun and Charity with the Mitzvah Man

On Thursday, Aug 3 the Chinese auction for the Mitzvah Man Organization was hosted in home of Ezra and Paula Saff. The Mitzvah Man organization and their giant growing team of volunteers dedicate themselves to doing over 12,000 acts of Hesed per month. This event is the only fund raiser the organization holds annually.

The acts of Chesed that the Mitzvah Man organization devotes themselves to ranges. It includes activities like visiting the sick, visiting the elderly on Friday afternoons with flowers, sending young men to homes of the sick and elderly on holidays to blow the Shofar or read the Megillah, and more. 

“The turnout was great, a lot of people came especially during the day!” said Judy Shacalo, the event coordinator.

The day was packed with fun events and great speakers! Eve Ellenhorn of Flavorful Fit gave a demo of her healthy cooking. Laura Shammah, a well known community nutritionist gave a question and answer session. There was Bingo for kids after camp, and our beloved Rabbi Joey Haber gave an inspiring class for women. On top of that, twelve community women cooked for the event and sold their food for lunch to raise money.

The food sold at the event made by volunteers from the community.

The Chinese auction was also gleaming! There were tables with tempting technology, trips, and a stunning Shabbat package. Split the pot made its way up to an astounding fifteen thousand dollars by the end of the night!

A Chinese auction display of acrylic games.

During the night hours, the event was transformed into a cooking competition called Barbecue Wars. Each team of four raised $2600 to participate in this exciting game. The teams were called Lit, Urbanque, Dr. Grills, and Cooking for My People. The lucky judges who got to taste everything were Joey Haber, DSass (David Sasson), Sam Flaster, and Eleanor Maleh of Mazza and More.

Competitors had to prepare a cocktail, main dish, and dessert for the competition to be judged by the esteemed panel. The secret ingredients that the contestants had to cook with were cherry pie filling, banana chips, chestnuts, and mandarin oranges. The mandatory main dish ingredient was chop meat.

The 'Dr. Grills' team working hard on their dishes for the competition.

The group ‘Cooking for My People’ ended up taking home the gold. The team was the only one that included three women, one of which was their grandmother! 

Judges explained that they chose the winners because their drink was the best and their meat was cooked to perfection! Congratulations to the winning team as well as all the contestants, who raised money for such an important cause.

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Frieda@sephardic.org

Frieda Schweky is Sephardic.Org's official community events reporter. For inquiries and to get involved with our site, please contact Frieda via email.