Our Giving Kitchen expands as it works to address food insecurity

Our Giving Kitchen has more than doubled its capacity to feed Pittsburgh’s hungry with the opening of a new, much larger space in Squirrel Hill.

Now located next door to the Sally and Howard Levin Clubhouse on lower Murray Avenue, the nonprofit kitchen can accommodate more than 50 volunteers and generate over 300 kosher meals a week. Some are available on-site, while others are delivered to those in need through a dozen partner charities, including homeless shelters and food pantries.

Food insecurity continues to rise, according to data from the city of Pittsburgh, which reports that one in five residents — or more than 60,000 individuals — struggle to have healthful, adequate and culturally appropriate meals.

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“Food insecurity is huge, given inflation, unemployment and government cuts,” said Rabbi Chezky Rosenfeld, who founded Our Giving Kitchen four years ago on upper Murray Avenue. “As many meals as we make there are organizations more than happy to take them.”

There’s also no shortage of eager volunteers, who are the key ingredient in Our Giving Kitchen’s success, he said.

Karen Gal-Or, of Squirrel Hill, shows up most Sundays for what she described as both a fulfilling and fun experience. She brings along her three young sons to teach them the importance of giving back, she said.

“It’s challenging to find volunteer opportunities that can include kids, but Chezky and (his wife) Bassie (Rosenfeld) make it fun for the whole family. My six-year-old helped with cookie making because it also meant cookie tasting. The kids are given plastic knives to work with.”

Gal-Or, an attorney, chose to celebrate her 40th birthday at Our Giving Kitchen by gathering a group of friends to make meals.

She paid for the food and asked that it be delivered to the Womanspace East shelter “in merit of the Israeli hostages.”

Private sessions like this, which are offered on weekdays, are popular with synagogue sisterhoods, school groups and corporations who use them for team building, said Rosenfeld, noting that it costs about $1,000 to sponsor 100 meals.

Sundays, and Wednesday mornings, are open to individual volunteers, and they come from all sectors of the community, Jewish and otherwise, Rosenfeld said, noting that a large percentage become regulars.

They work on an assembly line handling every aspect of production — from chopping vegetables and rolling out cookie dough to cleaning up — and average 100 meals in 90 minutes.

“It’s an impressive, well-run operation,” said Gal-Or. “It’s also sociable and comfortable. Very welcoming. They make it ridiculously easy to volunteer.”

A typical meal might include meatballs in vegetable-tomato sauce over rice, green beans and a chocolate chip cookie. “We rotate our menu every couple of months,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s all fresh, and stuff that can be refrigerated or frozen. There’s no junk in the meals we serve.”

They are stashed in microwavable containers in refrigerators and available to anyone who walks in, with no proof of income required. Operating on the honor system enables recipients to retain their dignity, Rosenfeld said.

That approach appealed to Barb Kleyman, a retired chef, who began volunteering after reading about Our Giving Kitchen in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

“I showed up one Sunday and was hooked by the idea that people needing to eat didn’t have to jump through hoops, show income and fill out a lot of forms,” said Kleyman, 72, of Point Breeze. “I volunteered at a food bank and so I know what people have to go through to prove eligibility.”

With a degree in nutrition and food science, Kleyman feels good about the quality of the meals, and helping to get them to those in need “feeds my soul,” she said.

“My husband teases me that when I’m in the kitchen and cooking, I’m in my zone. I get that same feeling at Our Giving Kitchen.”

Kleyman also enjoys the connection with fellow volunteers, because, she said, “we’re all there for the same reason.”

“We’ve been blown away by how many people and organizations want to be involved. You can feel that people want to give, and now we have the space to accommodate them.”

“People are looking for connection and purpose,” she said. “Our Giving Kitchen is a place where they can find both, while feeding hundreds of people in the process.”

Meals left over at the end of the week are given to 412 Food Rescue, which delivers them to charities like Presbyterian SeniorCare Network, The Aleph Institute and Community Kitchen Pittsburgh.

“Ready-made meals are a precious resource because they help overcome other food insecurity issues for people who don’t have the skills or the time to cook,” said Josh Weiland, vice president of operations for 412 Food Rescue. “That the meals are kosher makes them unique.”

“When we get nuanced items like this it’s a precious resource.”

Besides the good feeling that Our Giving Kitchen volunteers take away from each session, they leave with two cookies in the spirit of the mission, Gal-Or said. “We are asked to keep one cookie and give the other one away.” PJC

Deborah Weisberg is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh.