Our story:

In Israel, many families are in extremely difficult financial situations, and without charities and organizations like Netivyah, they would not be able to put food on the table.

The municipal social services tell us that families are looking for work – any work – cleaning houses or stairwells. Some of them spend all day looking for jobs, but they do not find anything.
Families with many children where the parents have little or no education and have a hard time providing for large families of 8 to 14 people. Statistics show us that the higher the family's income and education are, the fewer children they have. The reverse is also true; the lower the income, the more children are in the family. New Immigrants, single mothers and many more.

Our food distribution program started when a supporter of Netivyah turned to us and offered to donate specifically to feed the hungry. We started the project using just a standard home kitchen to cook. A small group of needy people came to our building and received a warm meal and a nice place to sit and eat it. Slowly, the number of needy people grew until there wasn't enough space to feed them all. We started to prepare food packages to take home, sized according to their needs, the portions were rich meat dishes, emphasizing healthy food.

After some time, we purchased larger, better kitchen equipment, including industrial burners. However, even with volunteers and a semi-professional kitchen, the amount of needy people who turned to us for aid was greater than the amount of food we could prepare. We began giving out about half the food as prepared meals (same as before) for people with disabilities who could not take care of themselves, and the other half, to those who simply had nothing we gave ingredients to prepare the food at home; mostly chicken, pasta and rice.

In 2006, we had grown to help around 110 families and mostly distributed fruits, vegetables, dry food, and frozen meats. We began handing out a larger selection of food so that a family could choose from several types of frozen meat (chicken, beef, fish), and several types of dry goods (sugar, flour, pasta, rice, and so forth) and a selection of seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables.

By 2010 we were getting hundreds of requests for assistance, we were overwhelmed and we turned to the municipal welfare offices and social workers to help us with screening. At that time we were helping 150 families, throughout the neighborhoods of Jerusalem once a week.

In 2013, we were working almost exclusively with the welfare offices in the city. They referred to us families in need and we provided an average of 13 k"g (30 pounds) of food per family per week, throughout the year (this also included larger portions and special foods for all the Holidays).

Since the beginning, the biggest emphasis has been on respect. We have desired to serve, to be a helping hand and a supporting shoulder while maintaining an attitude of honor and dignity to all who come. Our building was always clean, with air conditioning and heat, and a well-stocked refreshment table with coffee, tea, cookies, and even games for the children.

Today, we are helping over 140 families, with 20-60 pounds of food per week.

Each person and every welfare office that works with us or receives our aid knows that the donations come from believers in Yeshua who love Israel and want to help Israel in the name of Yeshua.

To quote one of the senior social workers at one of the offices we help "You have become a life-giving artery for so many families." Praise God! Through your generous support and prayers, we are able to do this.

Of course, at the top of our list are the needy within the body of the Messiah. We help believers from many congregations throughout the city.

We can only do this good work because of the prayers and generous support of disciples of Yeshua around the world, who are searching for ways to support Israel.

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