BFP Distributes Food for 20 Years

August 1, 2010

A BFP volunteer, Sharon Ori, who was a nutritionist, noticed that many of the feeding programs in Israel at the time were limited in nutrition. “I knew that if low cost food could be provided to the agencies, then their budgets could be stretched to provide better quality and quantities of food…” A grant was received to start a food bank, and on the last day of February 1990, the first delivery of dry soup mixes and cereal was received. Sorting and packaging was done in the kitchen of the small BFP office.

The food bank remained in the office until the day a load of guavas was donated. This fragrant fruit rapidly filled the small office space, causing the staff to realize that a separate facility was needed for the growing food bank.

Donations rapidly increased, and the amount of food did as well. A warehouse was leased in September, and our Jerusalem Assistance Center has been at the same address ever since. When we first rented the property, it was quite small (only around 45 square meters or 484 square feet)—a long narrow room with a few shelves and a couple of tables. Our first food delivery vehicle was a red Peugeot which was affectionately called “the tomato.” 

We made two major expansions in 1996 and 2000 and around six other smaller expansions at other times—at the same location—increasing the office space and warehouse floor in Jerusalem to a total of 596 square meters (6,415 square feet). In 2008, we added our Karmiel Center in the North, with a total office and warehouse space of 1,251 square meters (13,465 square feet). Today, we have a total of 1,848 square meters (19,880 square feet). We started with a small used vehicle, and today, we have two large trucks and a smaller vehicle for food delivery. 

In 1990, we distributed 15 metric tons (16.7 US tons) of food at the average cost of US $.83 per kilogram. Last year, we gave out a total of 761 metric tons (839 US tons) of food at the average cost of US $1.64 per kilogram, feeding an average of 26,688 people per month! We presently are storing, but constantly rotating, around 520 metric tons (573 US tons) with 456 metric tons (502 US tons) set aside for times of crisis. This means that if a crisis, such as war or earthquake, made food supplies scarce and prices were to skyrocket, we would have enough food to continue to feed our recipients for eight months, as well as respond to special requests. We praise God for His goodness and for the faithfulness of our donors over these past 20 years!

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