Social Action

Tikkun Olam (Social Action)

Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) Our congregation provides its members with many opportunities for social action. Programs include:

  • Nicaragua work trip for teens
  • Family work trips in the New York Metropolitan area
  • Providing holiday and other meals for those in need
  • Sheltering and feeding the homeless of Northern Westchester
  • Raising money for local organizations
  • Hands-on tzedakah programs through our religious school and early childhood center
  • Midnight Runs
  • Greening project

Community Center of Northern Westchester.

Temple Shaaray Tefila is a community partner with the Community Center of Northern Westchester. The Community Center of Northern Westchester seeks to improve the well-being and self-sufficiency of neighbors in need in Northern Westchester by providing food, clothing, programs, and other resources. We are committed to treating all with dignity and respect. We encourage broad involvement and participation by residents and organizations in the communities we serve. More information can be found.

Shul Stitchers

Every month, we will be knitting baby blankets and lap blankets to donate to various charities. Experienced knitters or those who want to learn are welcome. Contact Karen Lieberman at knwm64@gmail.com.

HELPING HANDS

Get involved and become a part of HELPING HANDS, the Social Action Task Force. If you are interested in helping and would like to be on the mailing list, please let them know. If you have suggestions for projects in your neighborhood, send them.

For further information and to volunteer contact our Social Action team at SocialAction@tst.org.

Social Action Updates

Welcome to Shaaray Tefila's Social Awareness Page

Brought to you by...

The Social Action / Social Justice Teams

Our mission is to connect social action and social justice initiatives with relevant Jewish values such as Tikkun Olam (social justice), Chesed (loving kindness) and Tzedakah (justice). Our goal to "heal the world" (or bring light where there is darkness) is fostered through multi-generational programming that affects social change and benefits local, national and international communities.

Taking Action Together Partner With Our Shaaray Community In This Important Work

  • Join a below mentioned project
  • Share an idea with the committee
  • Fill a gap in what's missing from our work
  • Do you know someone in need who our Shaaray members can help?
  • Are you involved in an organization that you would like to bring Shaaray Tefila’s social awareness to?

Email socialaction@templest.org and let’s make a difference
*All affiliated and non-affiliated community members WELCOME!

Ongoing Projects…

Nourishing our Community:
      • Annual Thanksgiving Program: Prepare and deliver meals or groceries or provide supermarket gift cards to over 3700 individuals in our Westchester community
      • Annual Christmas Dinner Program: Prepare and deliver meals or groceries or provide supermarket gift cards to over 3700 individuals in our Westchester community
      • High Holy Day Food Drive: Provide thousands of pounds of food to the Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry and the Community Center of Northern Westchester
      • Community Centers in Neighboring towns: Provide meals for seniors
      • Cook2Care: Congregants and friends prepare homemade, nutritious, healthy food to donate to our neighbors in need
      • Food delivery to quarantined families in need
      • Food Distribution for Feeding Westchester and Neighbors Link: Temple members helped to organize, set up and distribute thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables, fruit, dairy and meat
      • Kosher Food Pantry: Kosher meal distribution to Northern Westchester’s  senior population 
      • Kosher Meal delivery to Seniors throughout Westchester. Staffed the volunteers necessary to continue this WJCS program
      • St. Bartholomew’s Soup Kitchen, White Plains: Provide meals for the grab-n-go lunch program
      • Sandwich Assistance Program: Help to nourish the Broadway Manor Homeless Day Shelter  and the Community Center of Northern Westchester, with sandwiches. Program started April 2020 and as of June 1, 2022, over 40,000 sandwiches or hot meals have been distributed. 
      • Shaaray’s Community Garden: Temple members grow vegetables to donate to local pantries
      • Somer’s Manor Nursing Home - Bingo and Shabbat Services

Assisting our Community:

  • A-Home: School supplies and Halloween decorations
  • Bridges to Community: Cross-cultural humanitarian experience for Shaaray members in partnership with the Bedford Presbyterian Church. Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic
  • Clothing and Coat Drives
  • Emergency Shelter Partnership:  In an effort to address homelessness in our county, Shaaray  and a consortium of Tempe’s and churches provide meals, toiletries, and shelter for individual weeks over the entire winter
  • Financially support ten organizations (yearly) with monies from the Social Action Fund
    • Emergency Shelter Partnership (Founding Member)
    • Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry (Founding Member)
    • Westchester Jewish Community Services (WJCS)
    • Midnight Run
    • Community Center of Northern Westchester (CCNW)
    • My Sister’s Place
    • Hope’s Door
    • A-Home
    • Neighbors Link
    • Friends of Karen
  • Midnight Run: Evening  and Breakfast Runs to provide clothing, blankets, food, and hot coffee to NYC’s homeless 
  • Shul Stitchers: A mighty group making an impact one stitch at a time. Beginners welcome
  • 914Cares/CCNW; distributed diapers throughout the pandemic and to present day from 914Cares to CCNW, volunteer on premise to assemble “Bags of Love”
  • Big Viv Foundation: provided Christmas toys, Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, computers, and clothing
  • Most of the organizations above are recipients of our Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner Programs

Specialized And Response Projects...

  • Refugee  Resettlement- TST is a founding member of ReSet Westchester, aka Northern Westchester Refugee Resettlement Initiative. ReSet welcomes, resettles and helps assure new refugees a safe home and prepares them to lead productive and independent lives. Our assistance includes housing, job placement, health, education, transportation, and successful adaptation to a new country and a new way of life while holding onto the valued traditions of their country of origin’s culture. As of June 1st, 2022, ReSet has resettled three families from Afghanistan and will be resettling  fourth family from Ukraine on June 14th, 2022.
  • Covid Relief: Supply PPE to front-line workers and provide funds and meals for families in need
  • Respond to Emergencies: With tools in hand, congregants work to repair communities damaged by natural disasters: Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, Rockaway & Breezy Point after SuperStorm Sandy,  Financial support for  Louisiana temple affected by hurricanes, Bahamian Organization for Human Rights - collected necessities for distribution
    • Shaaray Beautification Day: Congregants and friends help to clean up the grounds and plant annuals, perennials, bushes and trees, 
    • Respond to neighbors in need: Performed landscape maintenance for the first private group home in NYS
  • Jewish Solidarity: participated in NYC march
  • Women’s Rights: participated in NYC marches and whenever and wherever representation is needed
  • LGBTQIA: bring light and support to our community through events and seminars
  • Racial Justice: bring education to the temple community with documentaries, seminars and support such as sponsoring the inaugural town of Bedford Juneteenth celebration
Interested in joining the The Social Action / Social Justice Teams? Click Here.

Businesses We Partner With:

We would like to thank the businesses who donate to the Social Action Programs including the Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner Programs:




A & S Mt. Kisco

A & S Millwood

ACME

Art of Flowers

Bedford Village Flower Shoppe

Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen 

Bobo’s

Cherry Blossom Farm

Colonial Terrace

Crabtree Kittle House

DeCicco Family Markets

Exit 4 Restaurant

Feeding Westchester

Forever in Bloom

Gersky’s Catering 7 Event Planning

Greenburgh Hebrew Center

  1. Weiss & Co.

Henry Schein Inc.

House of Flowers of Mamaroneck

Interstate Foods

JCC - Mid-Westchester

Key Food

Lange’s Deli

Metro Deli Catering

Mrs. Green’s 

New Castle CLeaners

Old Stone Trattoria

Rincon Santaneco

Rye Ridge Deli

St. Francis of Assisi

Sammy’s Kosher

Seasons

Shames JCC on the Hudson

Shiraz Kitchen

Shoprite

Stop & Shop

Sunrise Building & Remodeling Inc.

Rincon Santaneco

Temple Beth El Of Northern Westchester

Trader Joe’s

Two’s Company

Whispering Pines

White Plains Bake Shoppe

Whole Foods

WJCS

Village Market Chappaqua

White Plains Lincoln

Zaro’s Bakery

Organizations We Support And Partner With:

Abbott House 

Adopt-a-Dog  

Armonk Fire Department/EMTs 

AFYA 

A-Home  

Bedford Fire Department 

Bedford Presbyterian Church 

Big Viv’s Foundation 

Birthday Box

Boys and Girls Club of Mount Kisco

Bridges to Community- USA, Nicaragua & The Dominican Republic

Chappaqua Community Center

Community Center of Nort\hern Westchester

DOROT 

Emerge Puerto Rico

Emergency Shelter Partnership 

Endeavor Therapeutic Horsemanship

Family Services of Westchester 

First Private Group Home in New York State

Friends of Karen

Grasslands Homeless Shelter 

The Guidance Center of Westchester

Guiding Eyes for the Blind 

Hadassah Foundation

Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem 

Hope Lodge

Hope’s Door

Holocaust Remembrance Committee @ Shaaray

IsraAID 

Ken Hamilton Caregivers Center @Northern Westchester Hospital

The Sally & Anthony Mann Center 

Meals on Wheels 

Midnight Run

Mount Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry

Mount Kisco Senior Nutrition

My Sisters’ Place

Neighbors Link 

New Castle Senior Nutrition

New York Blood CenterNorthern Westchester Hospital

Open Arms Men’s Shelter

Open Door Medical Center

Operation Gratitude

Ossining Children’s Center

Paramount at Somers Rehabilitation and Nursing Center

Pleasantville Cottage School / Edenwald

Puerto Rico

Rambam Hospital, Haifa, Israel

ReSet Westchester

Riverkeepers

Samaritan’s House Women’s Shelter

Scouts of Bedford and Somers

St. Bartholomew Church Soup Kitchen

Shaaray Sustainability

Shul Stitchers @ Shaaray

Soroka University Medical Center, Beersheba, Israel 

SPCA

Temple Beth Shalom in Puerto Rico 

Vernon Plaza Family Center

Veterans organizations in Northern Bronx

VAMC Women Veterans

The VA Montrose

Westchester Hospice 

Westchester Klezmer Program

Westchester Youth Alliance

White Plains Lincoln

WJCS

Yad Leah - Jerusalem