At ten o’clock, Adi instructed all the children in her Jerusalem gan (kindergarten) to take out their aruchat eser (mid-morning meal). Hungry, all the children raced to unzip their tiks (backpacks), remove their lunches and begin eating. All the children, that is, except for Benny.
“At the beginning of the year, I noticed that Benny often came to gan without food. One morning, I asked him if he forgot his food at home. His response broke my heart. “We have no food at home, my belly is empty, and I haven’t eaten anything since the slice of bread you gave me yesterday.”
That night, Adi made a call to Meir Panim and arranged for Benny and his siblings to receive daily hot lunches, free of charge.
Unfortunately, Benny is not the only four year old in Israel that leaves for school without lunch and goes to bed hungry.
