Last month and just in time for Passover, Israel lifted the COVID-19 tourist restrictions and finally allowed travel to Israel. As expected, a large number of tourists came to celebrate Passover in Israel, with their families and friends.

After two years without tourists, we were delighted to welcome them back into our fields. Once again, we opened up for three days of Family Open Day Picking at Leket’s fields in Rishon Lezion, allowing for as many people to volunteer as we could accommodate. I was pleased to see many of you there with your families. Over the course of the three days, we hosted close to 1,000 volunteers, many of whom told us they had been waiting anxiously to return.

Welcoming overseas volunteers is an important strategic part of Leket’s marketing. Although these events are not big money-makers, we consider it a “friendraiser” and we believe that it significantly increases our brand awareness which can eventually turn a friend into a supporter. We work hard to make this day an impactful event, by providing on the spot introductions to Leket’s work and have key Leket staff members on hand to meet the volunteers. I joined the groups in the fields all three days meeting new people and greeting old friends and giving everyone a piece of fresh kohlrabi, an easy ice breaker leading to new friendships.

We understand the value of showing our appreciation to our overseas supporters and continue to offer different opportunities for them to learn more about Leket Israel’s operations. On June 27-28 we will be running our 4^th Annual Leket Live mission after a 2-year hiatus due to the pandemic. We are looking forward to being back in person and registration is the highest since we started this initiative. This will be a wonderful opportunity for our supporters to better understand Leket Israel, see what and how we do our food rescue, as well as meet our staff. There is still time to register. For more information and registration please, CLICK HERE or email [email protected]

Our newest project is geared toward young professionals, a weeklong mission to Israel. We are receiving a lot of support from our friend Joshua Schiffman who is actively engaged in bringing young professionals to Israel to learn about Leket, food rescue and food insecurity in Israel. You may have seen his most recent initiative at the YU Macs basketball games where Leket was featured heavily. The mission will include learning about Leket’s operations as well as Leket adjacent activities including food tours, trips to agro-tech companies and more. If you or someone you know is a good fit for this program, please be in touch with [email protected] for more information.

Later in the year, we will once again host Family Open Pick Days over Chol HaMoed Sukkot. Stay tuned for more information.

Of course, if you’re in Israel at any other time of the year, we’d love to have you volunteer with us in the Logistics Center or the fields, just email [email protected] and she will coordinate for you.

We invest a lot of time in showcasing what we do. I am pleased to be able to provide hands-on opportunities to experience with Leket through a variety of activities to partake in them with family and friends. We can support any group and will go the extra mile to make volunteering as impactful as we can. It is important for us, not only for development but I would say, at least as much to give our supporters a great experience. And it works!