The torrential rain that flooded and damaged many homes and streets throughout the Milwaukee area on July 22 also destroyed the operation of the Jewish Community Pantry.
This service, the only kosher emergency food pantry in the Milwaukee area, was located at 3033 W. Burleigh St., one of the lowest lying streets in the city.
In a telephone interview July 27, Dorene Paley, community services director at the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center and the pantry’s director, said, “We knew there had been a lot of flooding” on the evening of July 22, “but we didn’t expect what we found” the next day.
She, JCC executive director Mark Shapiro, and facility manager Jack Padek went to the site on Friday morning. Some four feet of water had invaded the space, and “everything was knocked over,” she said. “We realized it was going to be beyond salvage.”
“We’re very sad,” she said. “Our clients need us so badly and now they’ve been hit too by the storm.” The pantry serves an average of about 1,500 people each month, she said. “We have a multitude of people who need us,” she said.
The facility is being cleaned up, but “we’re looking for another location at the same time,” Paley said. Co-chairs of the pantry are Cindy Benjamin and Lil Teplinsky, and they and others will be “following up every possible lead” for a new site “in hopes of reopening as quickly as possible,” said Paley.
Paley said that anybody who knows of or owns a property, preferably in the same area, that they think might serve as a location for the pantry should call Paley at the JCC, 414-967-8217.
Moreover, pantry clients who may need emergency food should call 211 (IMPACT) to be directed to other pantries still open.
For all the loss, Paley said she feels optimistic that this problem will be solved. “We have been in business since 1976 and our community has supported us amazingly,” she said. “We need community members to continue their support, and I’m sure they will.”
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