Restaurants Pitching In For Pre-Passover Food Drive

When customers place a food order for delivery, they don’t expect that when the driver arrives he could clean out their pantry.

But such is the case with the Pre-Passover Food Drive, with drop-off locations at , Noah’s Ark and . These three Teaneck restaurants also are allowing patrons to hand over donations to delivery drivers when they drop off customers’ orders.

Chopstix owner and Councilman Elie Katz said the food drive started more than 10 years ago. Prior to dropping off the food at Helping Hands Food Pantry, which opened in 2009, the food drive benefited the Center for Food Action.

Katz founded Helping Hands with Daniel Meys, who is pastor of . The church houses the food pantry in the back of the building.

“This is the most successful food drive for the food pantry,” Katz said. “We’re midway through the drive, and it’s going really well.”

In past years the amount of food collected from the drive was enough to fill the catering box truck for Noah’s Ark “three or four times,” said Katz.

The councilman said Noam Sokolow, who owns Noah’s Ark and Shelly’s, has always been a big help in collecting food for those in need. “He does it selflessly, and he doesn’t ask for credit,” said Katz.

Katz added that he and Sokolow would sometimes compete to see which business collected the most food, though this year there’s no competition.

Sokolow acknowledged the friendly competition, saying it was all in fun and part of a larger, greater cause.

“We’re a community store, and we want to do anything we can to help,” Sokolow said. “We’ve been doing this for years, and we’ll continue to help for years to come.”

 Director Janice Preschel said this a great time of the year for donations. She said about 160 families and individuals have signed up for assistance at the West Englewood Avenue pantry, but not everyone shows up each week.

“The Orthodox Jewish community donates a lot, especially before Passover when certain foods need to be removed from the home, such as items with flour in it,” she said.

Preschel said non-perishable food and toiletries already have been pouring in, and much more still is awaiting pickup at the restaurants.

“We also received undistributed food from the food pantry,” Preschel said. “Helping Hands founders Elie Katz and Daniel Meys have extended a welcome to participants who used the Armory food pantry.”

Preschel said that even though only Teaneck residents can make use of Helping Hands, that restriction is lifted for those from the Armory pantry who don’t live in town.

“They would still have to fill out an application because everything is recorded, but Helping Hands welcomes these individuals who have defended our country – past or present,” she said.

after a National Guard official decided the pantry was no longer needed, said officials and reports.

“Especially during this difficult economic time, demand has increased for the pantry’s services from Teaneck residents,” Katz said. “This food drive is a win-win situation because perfectly good food that otherwise would have been thrown out is being donated instead.”

Due to limited resources, the restaurants’ drivers can only pick up donations from homes that placed an order for delivery. Helping Hands Food Pantry is located at 185 West Englewood Avenue in Teaneck and is open 12:30-2 p.m. Tuesdays and 6-7:30 p.m. Thursdays. For more information about the pantry, call 201-715-5179.