Since our last update, we have been busy. We have reached out to 99 more people in need of food and other items like diapers, hygiene supplies, prescriptions, toys for kids and clothing for all ages.

We delivered 150 hot meal this past Friday to families here in Sderot for Shabbat and made numerous trips to the super market for people.

We prepared breakfast for twenty of the soldiers that protect us and dinner for another 25. We baked and delivered 15 chocolate cakes to them as well as other people we give food to.

We helped a family today that wound up selling their car to provide food for their family. Their daughter Iris, is in the army, and like I have said before the IDF does the best they can to feed the soldiers but in the end most families send food to their children who are fighting to protect us. They let their car go for 600 shekels or about $175 USD. That money won’t feed them for very long but I can report to you today, they have enough food to feed themselves for another two weeks. They still don’t know how to pay their monthly bills or how that will play out with those they owe.

“You’re doing something that no one has done for me”.

Six years ago, Avi was a truck driver. He spent most of his days on the road delivering heavy loads; that was until the slipped and fell off the back of his truck. When he was released from the hospital, he came home using a walker. Today he is paralyzed from the waist down. I met him a year and a half ago and Hope For Sderot has helped him and his family.

He lives on the third floor of a four story building. They bought the home before he was injured and they have been trying to move to a ground floor home, with no luck so far.  It takes four men to pick him and his wheel chair up and take him down three flights of stairs. Needless to say  those who helped him up and down the stairs are not here, so for now he is staying put in his home here in Sderot.

His three kids all work to help support the family, but since the war, one son has gone out of town to work in the bakery chain he worked for in here in Sderot. His other son works sporadically at the corner market. We reached out to him on Friday and this is the message I got back from him…

Hello Stewart, sorry I write in Hebrew, Amir is not at home. What’s up? Thank you very much. You didn’t have to make an effort.  You’re doing something that no one has done for me. May the Holy One, blessed be He, give you sustenance, abundance of health 🤲 Thank you very much, I just don’t know how to thank you for what you do. It’s something that is not obvious, I don’t know how to explain it. What you do for my family, thank you very much for thinking of us as well. What I feel cannot be conveyed through a message. Thank you very much Stewart. God bless you. My wife also gives you a lapel. We love you. Have a good Shabbat.

The gratitude we see, the hugs, the thank you’s, the GOD bless you’s from the people we have helped so far; they ALL belong to YOU. You are the one who has put the food on their tables, the clothes on their backs; those who kept the light on or put the fuel in their cars. YOU are responsible for the glimmer of hope, for the relief of feeling they are in this situation all by themselves and not knowing what to do;  YOUR out-stretched hand has touched a very scared and hurting heart with understanding and compassion. I don’t think you are fully aware of what your love means for the people we help, but also for me personally.  Without YOU we could not help a single one of these hurting people. SO, thank you with all my heart.

Stewart Ganulin

Director

Hope For Sderot