 APRIL 30 • 2020 | 13

Yad Ezra Moves to 
Deliveries Only

Thanks to army of volunteers, all clients 
will still be served.
W

e had just suc-
cessfully com-
pleted our 
Passover grocery dis-
tribution to more than 
1,000 families via curb-
side and home deliveries 
when I received a letter 
sent to my home from 
an anonymous client who 
expressed deep concern about 
Yad Ezra moving to a “deliv-
eries-only” process during the 
pandemic. 
The author of the letter was 
so worried that s/he would not 
get home grocery delivery due 
to the (unstated) far distance 
that s/he lives. This letter 
haunted me because, since the 
beginning of the pandemic, my 
main concern has been ensuring 
our vulnerable client families 
they would receive the groceries 
they depend on, regardless of 
what it would take on our part 
to make that happen. 
Yad Ezra has always relied on 
a corps of volunteers to work 
with our small staff to execute 
its mission. On April 21, we 
officially launched our “deliver-
ies-only” process with the help 
and support of many volunteers 
from all over the community. 
Providing approximately 1,100 
deliveries a month is a daunting 
endeavor, and Daniella Harpaz 
Mechnikov, Yad Ezra’
s logistics 
czarina, is leading the charge to 
coordinate this effort. 
With the support of other 
Yad Ezra team members, vol-
unteers are invited to sign up 
and choose their delivery dates 
for dropping off groceries to 
client families. Volunteers are 
registering to do deliveries in 
Rochester, Bloomfield Hills, 
Clarkston, Dearborn Heights, 
Detroit, Troy, Livonia, Pontiac, 

Walled Lake, Waterford 
and any other city where 
clients live. 
To ease some of the 
burden, Jewish Family 
Service and the Ford 
Motor Company Fund 
have offered some of their 
drivers and vans to deliver 
to the more concentrated areas 
that we serve (Oak Park and 
Southfield). Drivers from Ann 
Arbor and Flint continue to 
come to Yad Ezra to pick up 
groceries for their client families 
(43 and 18, respectively), along 
with those picking up for 20 
Kadima and 22 JARC homes. 
While our phones continue 
to ring off the hook from clients 
with questions and concerns, 
our community’
s response to 
collectively helping manage 
this pandemic continues to 
be a force that helps us get 
through the more exhausting 
days. Our Jewish community, 
under Federation’
s leadership, 
has come together in ways that 
provide us with the resources 
needed to support the many 
vulnerable and isolated individ-
uals during this unprecedented 
time. 
I wish I could contact the 
concerned client and reassure 
her/him that healthy groceries 
will be delivered to their door, 
regardless of their address. 
Because I don’
t know who that 
person is or where s/he lives, 
I can only hope they see this 
piece in the Detroit Jewish News, 
our community’
s messenger, 
and are comforted by the fact 
that they are not alone, or, more 
importantly, not forgotten. 

Lea Luger is executive director of Yad 
Ezra.

Lea Luger

Click. Call. Give Now. 
www.hfldetroit.org • 248.723.8184

Hebrew Free Loan Detroit

6735 Telegraph Road, Suite 300 • Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48301

@HFLDetroit

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