We are Raya and Dina, from Naharia, a small Israeli town near the Lebanese border. Together with a bunch of neighbors and local folks, we cook homemade meals for soldiers: 450 on weekdays, and on weekends - it's 2900 and often more.
More and more soldiers are asking for homecooked meals these days (July 2024), as all-out war with Hezbollah terrorists seems imminent. We have enough volunteers willing to keep cooking despite constant rocket and drone attacks, but we need your help to help pay for groceries.
Just last weekend, we've cooked a record 3200 meals, with close to 30 volunteers working through the night. That’s literal tons of food, about 1,600kg / 3,500lb.
There are no big orgs involved here, nobody is getting paid, we are all volunteers. Every cent you give, goes 100% to buy food for soldiers.
Click here to donate and help feed our soldiers.[Donations are tax-deductible in US, Israel, Canada, France and the UK]
How did we end up feeding thousands of soldiers?
On October 7th, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza. They slaughtered 1200 men, women, children and babies. Since then, Israel has been at war, and not only in Gaza. Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that is even larger, and more heavily armed, than Hamas, is attacking the northern border of Israel every day, with rockets, mortars, anti-tank missiles and drones. North of Israel is under constant threat of an invasion that may make October 7th pale in comparison.
Many thousands of Israeli soldiers are fighting to protect that border, and a lot of them got stationed right next to me.
When they came, I (Raya) asked around to see how I can help. I didn't have money to spend, but I do love to cook and have got spare time. So I started cooking for soldiers, and they loved it, and told other soldiers. I got together with a bunch of neighbours and friends, we asked for help from locals for groceries, someone even gave us a kitchen to use for cooking. We started with a few dozen soldiers, then a couple hundred, then almost a thousand.
In meantime, Dina Bitton was doing the same with "Hamal Bitton" - her family and neighbors working together to feed our soldiers, too. They, too, were taking care of more than a thousand soldiers. So eventually we (Raya and Dina) started working together.
The word spread, and now we are cooking for 450 soldiers on weekdays, and on weekends it is 2900 and more. Recently, as war seems closer than ever, we have crossed the 3,000 mark on weekends.
The costs for groceries are unfortunately more than we can handle (we are talking tens of thousands of dollars for each month, and we've been doing this for 8 months, all thanks to donations). We are really trying to keep feeding our boys and girls at the front, and even to feed more. It's so sad to see that more of them want the meals and we just don't have any more to spare.
We need your help.
What's the money for?
It's important for us to clarify: nobody is getting paid here. There's no CEO, there's no staff, nobody is getting paychecks, not even a cent. Everyone is a volunteer, we give it our all, for free.
The money goes 100% towards buying groceries to cook the meals.
If you know someone from the area, you can also give groceries directly, not just money. We need chicken, meat, rice, pasta, veggies, and trays that we use to deliver it to the soldiers. You can contact us 0526374220 to give any of those (or pretty much any food, we'll find a way to turn it into a meal).
Click here to donate and help feed our soldiers. Donations are tax-deductible.
This article was written in cooperation with Raya Tal and Dina Bitton