More than a thousꦉand Holocaust survivors in the Big Apple have been kept well fed during the coronavirus pandemic thanks to a $1 million grocery delivery program quietly rolledꩲ out by The Met Council.
“Right now, my lifesaver is what I get from the boxes,” 90-year-old survivor Lena Goren, who lives in Queens, told The Post. “The food coming here helps me a great deal.”
The charity — which is officially called🎐 the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Pﷺoverty — first launchedౠ the grocery delivery program as a pilot shoღrtly before Passover this year and kicked it into high gear in mid-April as the COVID-19 crisis forced seniors into isolation.
The program served 3,076 New Yorkers during a recent week and a third of those who received food — 1,112 — are members of New York’s community of Holocaust survivors.
Goren — who was born in Greece and hid from the Nazis with her family at a monastery after their town mayor warned her rabbi father they were set for deportation — said the weekly box of groceries means, “I can cook at any time of the day.”
Each weekly food box contains a pound of fruit and a pound of veggies, canned beans, tuna, rice, pasta, cereal, milk, granola bars and other items, according to David Greenfield, the nonprofit’s chief executive.
“It’s literally a matter of life and death,” he said. “We can’t tell people who are sick and elderly to go leave their homes and wait on line for hours just so they can get some food.”
The Met Council spends about $165,000 a week on the program, which Greenfield said has been underwritten largely by a $500,000 donation from real estate mogul Jane Goldman. All told, the charity has raised $1.2 million to supporꦚt the effort.
Greenfield said the program is open to homebound seniors of all faiths. Those interested in applying sho💦uld email food(at)metcouncil.org.