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JRA Struggles with Supply Chain,
Finding Summer Volunteers
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
A s skyrocketing gas prices and
grocery cost inflation have
impacted those most finan-
cially disadvantaged, the same factors
also affect the organizations that serve
them. Philadelphia-based Jewish Relief
Agency, a volunteer-led hunger-relief
nonprofit, has felt its share of pan-
demic- and war-induced economic
hardships, forcing the organization to
adapt to changing circumstances. As
summer approaches, small volunteer
numbers are making monthly food
packing and distribution efforts even
harder. JRA has struggled with sourcing
food to distribute to clients since 2020,
when the pandemic rendered some
food staples unavailable.

The organization serves 3,400
households in 90 zip codes around
Philadelphia. Around 65% of clients
are Jewish, and 73% are 65 years old
or older.

According to JRA Executive Director
Jodi Roth-Saks, JRA added more cli-
ents in 2020 due to the financial diffi-
culties of the pandemic While 300 of
the organization’s older clients died
in the pandemic, JRA began to serve
young families with growing financial
needs, Chief of Operations Julie Roat
added. “Not only did we have so many more
households asking for food, we also
had a challenging time accessing all of
the food we needed to feed everyone,”
Roth-Saks said.

Since the pandemic began, JRA has
fitted more food in boxes, going from
12-13 pounds to about 15 pounds. But
the cost to fill a box also has increased.

This year, the Passover box — one of
four holiday boxes JRA produces —
cost $4 more to fill than last year.

JRA receives
food from
Philabundance and Share Food
Program. It also receives funding from
FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter
Program grant, government support,
corporate and family foundations and
private donors to work with regional
vendors to source food.

Though the organization is not in
financial trouble, it feels the impact of
its vendors’ supply chain problems.

“What we’re dealing with, our price
changes or price increases, it’s astro-
nomical,” said Andrew Lansman, pres-
ident and owner of Baltimore-based
A&L Foods, one of JRA’s vendors. “I’ve
been in the business 40 years, and I’ve
never seen increases that we are expe-
riencing now.”
The prices of eggs have doubled, and
the company can only source 20-30% of
its usual supply of some foods. Freight
costs are the company’s biggest expen-
diture, Lansman said.

Sourcing kosher food at a good price
is even more challenging than sourc-
ing conventional goods. Many kosher
products are not made by their kosher
brands but rather outsourced to man-
ufacturers, adding one more step to
transportation. The smaller volume of
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The JRA warehouse in July 2020, when JRA reintroduced small-group
volunteering Photo by Elvera Gurevich
kosher goods means they are less of a
priority to those larger manufacturers.

And early in the pandemic, rabbis were
unable to travel to food production
sites to provide the mandatory super-
vision needed for kosher goods.

On JRA’s end, this looks like more
expensive goods coming into the ware-
house at inopportune times. Roat oft en
has to balance receiving deliveries for
boxes months in advance with packing
and delivering boxes for the current
month. Before the pandemic, JRA would
host volunteer packing days and food
distribution days on one Sunday
a month. Now, packing days are on
Th ursday, Friday and Sunday, and vol-
unteers distribute the boxes on Sunday,
Monday and Tuesday. It’s the same
amount, if not more boxes than before
the pandemic, with only a fraction of
the volunteer hands available.

Summer volunteer shortages are a
national phenomena, Roth-Saks said,
as is volunteering overall. A December
2021 Gallup survey reported a 56%
decline in volunteering in 2021.

Some of the decline is predictable;
Philadelphians go down the shore on
the weekend and travel over the sum-
mer. But with pandemic restrictions
waning, people have better things to do
than volunteer, Roth-Saks fears.

“People are fi nally out and about.

With COVID, many people had not
been traveling as much,” she said. “It
is going to be especially hard to recruit
volunteers this summer.”
Chris Levin has volunteered with
JRA for more than four years, includ-
ing at the beginning of the pandemic,
when only a handful of volunteers
came into the warehouse to pack boxes.

Before the pandemic, Levin remem-
bered hundreds of volunteers packing
on a Sunday. Roat said that before
March 2020, about 1,000 volunteers
would participate in food packing and
delivery. During the pandemic, a good
turnout was 300-500 people.

“I don’t know why people aren’t com-
ing,” Levin said. “But from my perspec-
tive, there’s a job to be done, and I’m
just going to do whatever I can do to
fulfi ll that need because it’s a need that
should not exist.”
Roth-Saks and Roat hope that
workplaces will return to the JRA
warehouses for corporate volunteer
opportunities. With the return of sum-
mer camps at full capacity, campers
can help buoy volunteer eff orts.

Pam Malter, director of Camp
Canadensis in Monroe, said camp-
ers volunteering at JRA is a symbiotic
relationship; recipients enjoy speaking
with young people, and campers return
to camp with stories about the inter-
esting people they met volunteering.

Camp Canadensis will have campers
volunteer with JRA aft er a two-year
absence. “[Campers] love learning about the
organization. Many of them want to
return in the future because they had
such a good experience,” Malter said.

“And they really love being able to
bring boxes to people who are in need.”
JRA will host volunteer days on June
9, 10 and 12-15; July 7, 8 and 10-12;
and Aug. 11, 12 and 14-16. More infor-
mation is available at jewishrelief.org/
volunteer-1. JE
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