Watch the video: Judy’s Kindness Kitchen is feeding a need

Each Sunday, David Mandelbaum drives a load of sandwiches to Crossroads Rhode Island, the largest homeless-services organization in the state. But before he leaves the Alliance’s Dwares Jewish Community Center, where volunteers prep the food, he packs 15 special bags, which sit next to him in the car.

As Mandelbaum, 70, drives 2 miles through downtown Providence, he knows he’ll pass people on the street holding signs that plead for help.

“I feel like, ‘This is ridiculous. I’ve got a carful of food,’ ” says Mandelbaum. When he spots people on a street corner, he hands out the bags of oranges, cucumbers and other healthy snacks.

“I go to Kennedy Plaza, and the bags go in a minute or two,” he says.

Mendelbaum is head manager of Judy’s Kindness Kitchen, an all-volunteer nonprofit that prepares Kosher food for local people who are homeless. The organization was founded near the end of 2004 by Barry Bessler and Deborah Kutenplon, and was long based at Congregation Beth Sholom when it was on Camp Street. The name comes from Mandelbaum’s mother, an energetic family therapist who died of cancer in 1980 at age 56.

You would think that serving food to people in need would be a straightforward task, but Judy’s Kindness Kitchen has traveled some rough roads. COVID-19 hit hard, making face-to-face service impossible. And the organization used to ladle out a special vegetable soup, based on Judy Mandelbaum’s recipe, at the shelter, but the soup has proven too labor-intensive to prepare. Sandwiches are easier to assemble and distribute.

“Logistically, we’re not going to go back to the soup,” says Mandelbaum. “Obviously, it’s a little sad. The recipe is still on the website [www.judyskindnesskitchen.org], so people certainly have access. [But] there was something incredibly gratifying about the encounters in the shelter, and that’s lost.”

Matters got more complicated when Congregation Beth Sholom sold its Camp Street building in mid-2020. Mandelbaum had to find a new location – right at the height of the pandemic.

The operation migrated over to the JCC, where food is prepared in the kitchen and the social hall by a rotating platoon of 20 volunteers. Mandelbaum says there are 40 to 50 regulars who assemble tuna and PB&J sandwiches on Sunday mornings. Judy’s Kindness Kitchen serves both Crossroads and Emmanuel House, another homeless shelter in Providence, distributing 600 sandwiches to hungry people.

“We get new volunteers pretty regularly,” says Mandelbaum. “I’m always a little fascinated how people find us. We have a lot of families who come and volunteer. One of the things that makes us appealing is that kids can come.”

“The JCC has been fantastic,” he adds, crediting the Alliance's Tim Morlen and events coordinator Jana Brenman with helping volunteers acclimate to the new space.

“They opened for us during COVID. They were closed on Sundays, but Tim came in for us, every Sunday, for a year,” he says.

Judy’s Kindness Kitchen has recently expanded to include Saturday assembly at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Greenwich. (The JCC is not available because of Shabbat observance.) Food is also now distributed to the Providence Rescue Mission. This has increased the number of people the kitchen can help, with a total weekend bounty of 900 sandwiches, but it also requires more money: a $10,761 annual budget in 2019 ballooned to $23,094 in 2022.

“At the moment, we’re broke,” Mandelbaum says.

He’s hopeful that Judy’s Kindness Kitchen will receive a windfall of donations from regular benefactors in the coming months, and he is currently seeking a grant of $66,000 from a local nonprofit.

“Our only concrete cost is food and supplies,” he says.

The kitchen has long relied on the generosity of strangers: donated space, donated time, and volunteers who are willing to buy supplies from Shop & Save or Restaurant Depot and receive reimbursement later.

“If you [asked] how much would it cost to make this happen if I had to pay for absolutely everything that we use, $66,000 [annually] is the number that I came up with,” Mandelbaum says.

Effusive and energetic, Mandelbaum, a child neurologist, is now partly retired. During volunteer sessions, he flits around the room, introducing everyone and rattling off entire life stories.

Mandelbaum says he feels a great debt to the volunteers, including the former bank CFO who insisted on preparing tuna, the Army veteran who apologized for not attending more often and the guy who moved to Maryland, but when he came back to Rhode Island to visit family, he made a point of packing sandwiches.

“If you feel blessed – or, if you want to make it more secular, lucky – it is very easy to be generous,” muses Mandelbaum. “Judaism is infused with that concept. We’re here by God’s grace. If we’re fortunate enough to be in a good position, it has nothing to do with what we deserve and everything to do with blessings being bestowed.

“The Torah is explicit that you have to tithe your income. ‘Charity’ is not a good translation of tzedakah. It’s ‘justice.’ I feel very strongly about that.”

And the food is filling a very real need. Once, when Mandelbaum brought snacks to Kennedy Plaza, a man noticed the Judy’s Kindness Kitchen logos stamped on the bags.

“Judy. Is that the Jewish lady who died?” the man asked.

Mandelbaum was taken aback but said yes.

“And you’re her son, right?”

The man remembered Mandelbaum and Judy’s Kindness Kitchen from Crossroads when he’d stayed there some years before. He had heard the story and remembered the logo of a decorated spoon.

“I thought, ‘This is fantastic,’ ” says Mandelbaum. “This guy remembers.”

Donations to Judy’s Kindness Kitchen can be directed to Congregation Beth Sholom, 55 Cromwell St., Unit 1D, Providence, RI 02907 or you can email JKK.CBS@gmail.com.

ROBERT ISENBERG (risenberg@jewishallianceri.org) is the multimedia producer for the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and a writer for Jewish Rhode Island.