Tomchei Shabbos: The Quiet Messengers Who Bring Shabbos Home תומכי שבת: די שטילע שליחים וואס ברענגען שבת אין שטוב

It is an ordinary week in Boro Park. Somewhere in a warehouse, businessmen and bochurim are packing boxes of food for Shabbos. Later other volunteers drive off with the boxes and deliver them to homes — so quietly that no one knows. That is Tomchei Shabbos.

A Small Beginning

According to the website of Tomche Shabbos of Boro Park and Flatbush, the organization was founded in 1975 with a single package: for the family of a bedridden man who had nothing to make Shabbos with. From that one act of kindness grew an organization with a yearly budget of 1.3 million dollars.

How It Works

• Boxes are assembled by volunteers — businessmen and students together.
• They are delivered discreetly to the families' homes.
• Families are screened first. They include families who lost a father or a job, elderly people, and families facing medical crises.
• Hundreds of families — they write approximately four hundred — receive food for Shabbos and Yom Tov every week.
• On Pesach, the most expensive Yom Tov, they help over a thousand families.

According to a listing on ChesedMatch, they deliver to Boro Park, Williamsburg, Flatbush and Sea Gate, and provide kosher food products — not cooked, except baked goods like challos and cake.

Matan B'seser

What makes Tomchei Shabbos so special is the dignity. No one stands in a line; no one has to feel ashamed. The box is simply there at the door, and the family sits at its own Shabbos table — just like everyone else on the block.

There are Tomchei Shabbos groups in many cities, each with its own management. Anyone who wants to help in Boro Park can reach them at 718.259.5576.