This South Jersey program hands out thousands of free kosher meals for kids each week: ‘We’re just here to feed you’

By the time volunteers unloaded an 18-foot refrigerated truck packed with hundreds of kosher school meals, a line of waiting vehicles had snaked around the parking lot.

The grab-and-go scene from this week plays out every Tuesday at two locations in Cherry Hill where volunteers distribute about 500 boxes of free kosher meals.

The program, launched last May, grew out of a need during the pandemic to support Jewish families by providing nutritious meals for their children that met dietary needs, said Yonatan Yares, who organized the distribution.

Funded by the Summer Meals Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the program is modeled after others that emerged during the pandemic to give school-type meals to children learning remotely.

Yares said he started the kosher-meal distribution because most traditional schools don’t offer kosher or halal meals that meet the religious and dietary needs of students who are Jewish or Muslim. In Philadelphia, for example, the district seeks to accommodate student needs based on preference or religion when possible, said spokesperson Monica Lewis.

A father of five, Yares began distributing the certified kosher meals in the parking lot of his synagogue, Young Israel of Cherry Hill on Cooper Landing Road. About 200 families signed up.

“We hit the ground running,” Yares said.

Within months, the program began attracting people from across the region, and later moved to Joyce Kilmer Elementary and Chabad Lubavitch of Camden County on Kresson Road. These days, it distributes meals each week for about 2,000 children from Cherry Hill and beyond.

“So many families are hurting. This is literally just about feeding people,” said Yares, 33, of Cherry Hill. “We don’t care if you are Asian, Jewish, Black, or Hispanic. We’re just here to feed you.”

For a special Passover distribution, volunteers on Tuesday set up an assembly line in the Kilmer parking lot. Boxes of food, fresh vegetables, and fruit were neatly stacked onto pallets.

» READ MORE: South Jersey food bank and its singing ‘ambassador’ fight hunger spawned by COVID-19

“It’s amazing to have Jewish food served to us,” said Israel-born Shanai Shpun, 36, a special-education teacher and mother of a 3-year-old, Liam. “It’s awesome.”

As cars winded around the grounds, the passengers remained inside and volunteers quickly took their orders and loaded boxes of food into their trunks.

“It really helps out. The food is fantastic,” said Laura Cloak, 34, of Cherry Hill, a medical assistant waiting in her car with her daughter, Sophia, 2.

Each box contained seven breakfasts and seven lunches of kosher-certified meals: salmon, turkey, pastrami, matzo, plenty of chocolate and white milk (labeled kosher for Passover), and healthy snacks including kiwi and clementines, as well as Hadar chocolate chip biscotti and macaroons.

“This is not about religion or race. This is about feeding children,” said volunteer Rivka Jungreis, 42, of Cherry Hill, a lawyer and a single mother of four. “There are no borders.”

Hester Hannon, 52, of West Berlin, who is Catholic, said she felt especially welcomed. A speech therapist in Camden, she picks up meals for her sons, Jonathan, 18, and Christopher, 17.

“I’m glad that it’s so inclusive. I have always been intrigued by the culture.,” said Hannon, a native of Trinidad and Tobago. “The food is great. I’m learning a lot. We can’t all be in our little boxes.”

Across the parking lot, another volunteer, Sandy Crass, worked a table where people dropped off donations — handmade matzo, cookies, Kedem grape juice, and jars of gefilte fish.

The meals are prepared in Lakewood by a kosher vendor that serves several school districts and driven to Cherry Hill every Tuesday. Yares helps select the menu and surveys parents to see what items their children like.

“We know children are picky eaters,” he said.

Last month, the federal government said it would extend waivers to allow students to receive free meals during the summer. The waivers allow meals to be served outside of traditional group settings and mealtimes, regardless of income.

» READ MORE: US hunger crisis persists, especially for kids, older adults

A doctoral student at Fairleigh Dickinson University and a graduate assistant, Yares got the idea after learning about a similar effort for Jewish students in Passaic started by Teach NJ, an advocacy group for the state’s nonpublic schools.

The meals program is open to any family with children ages 1 to 18, regardless of income. Parents are required only to complete a registration form, which Yares said helps eliminate the stigma associated with free and reduced-price school meal programs.

According to the USDA, there may be as many as 12 million children living in households where there is not always enough to eat. Children who eat breakfast regularly perform better academically and have fewer behavioral problems, studies show.

When the last vehicle drove away Tuesday, there were several pallets left on the ground. The leftovers were donated to the Cherry Hill Food Pantry and Hope Church.

“I’m grateful,” said Thomas Caspellan, 44, of Cherry Hill, a nurse and father of six, before driving away.

For more information about the kosher school meals program, contact Yonaton Yares at 732-213-1156 or yonaton.yares@gmail.com.