Modesto’s Congregation Beth Shalom feeds first-responders homemade holiday meal
First-responders working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were treated once again to a homemade lasagna dinner by members of Congregation Beth Shalom.
This holiday was the 12th year for the Modesto synagogue to put on its annual holiday dinner for first-responders.
Volunteers made 30 pans of lasagna as well as salad, cheddar bay biscuits and an assortment of cookies, brownies and other desserts. They make enough to feed 300 people.
Most of the meals are delivered to first-responders who cannot leave work, such as those working at Juvenile Hall, the county’s Public Safety Center as well as the Stanislaus Regional 911 and American Medical Response dispatch centers.
But volunteers also expected to feed about 50 police officers, sheriff’s deputies, paramedics and other first-responders who dropped by the synagogue for a meal.
“It’s a place we can come to that’s out of the weather,” Modesto police Lt. Bobby Meredith said Christmas Day as he and three other Modesto officers ate at the synagogue.
“We’re not eating in our cars,” Meredith said, “and we get to share time with these folks. We’re not with our families, and they’re not with their families, so it’s nice to share time with them.”
Volunteers also deliver meals to about 20 homebound seniors who live near the synagogue.
The annual holiday dinner allows the synagogue to thank first-responders for all they do for the community, said Joyce Gandelman, vice president of the Congregation Beth Shalom Board of Directors.
Gandelman said the dinner also fulfills the Jewish mandate of Tikun Olam, which means to repair the world. “We try to leave the world in a better place than we found it,” she said.
