Challah for Hunger is an international organization operating mostly on college campuses in the United States. Every week, chapters bake challah to sell to the campus communities. At Washington University, the money raised through these sales is given to two charities: the American Jewish World Service Sudan Relief and Advocacy Fund, and the Harvey Kornblum Jewish Food Pantry. In our first semester of operation (Spring, 2009) we raised over $1000 for each charity. We planned to improve our chapter by increasing the efficiency with which we bake challah and, thus, attract more volunteers. We also aimed to improve the educational component of our operation. We hope to serve our charities not only by donating money to them, but also by increasing awareness of the causes for which they stand.
This year has presented a seemingly endless stream of challenges for Washington University's Challah for Hunger chapter. After a summer of excited planning for the second semester of our operation, we came to campus to discover that the school had decided to forbid bake sales. The only way to get around this new rule would be to transfer our baking operation to a commercial-grade kitchen. On top of this, a kitchen that we had been counting on, the Hillel kitchen, proved to be temporarily off limits
To overcome these challenges, we began a search for another kitchen that we could use. It quickly became apparent that no on-campus kitchens would be feasible. We extended our search to the broader St. Louis community. After weeks of fruitless searching, we have found a synagogue-Nusach Hari-that is promising. We hope to use the kitchens of this synagogue in the coming semester until we come up with a more permanent solution, hopefully the Hillel kitchens, next year.
Because of the halt in our operations, we have not yet spent the grant from the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel Alumni Venture Fund. However, we hope to use it as soon as we have secured the use of a kitchen in which to restart our baking of challah. Until then, we plan to increase the efficiency of our challah baking by buying a mixer to help us make challah dough.
How to get involved:
If any BYFI alumni have access to a commercial-grade kitchen in St. Louis that Challah for Hunger could use, please email hsrabinowitz[at]gmail.com