Nourish is the Federation's community service movement, focused primarily on addressing hunger and poverty in the region and with a mission of feeding both the body and the soul. The program consists of a rotating series of community-wide events, with the Federation partnering with existing non-profit groups to work on service projects that best meet their needs and volunteers from the Jewish community participating in these projects. We also incorporate concerts into our volunteer events, often featuring music by New Orleans' own pianist extraordinaire Matt Lemmler. Nourish truly allows us to impact our wider community in a meaningful way! 

To date, we've held drives/events with UNITY, Bastion, the New Orleans Women and Children's Shelter, Covenant House, Grace at the Greenlight, and more. 

Thanksgiving Food Drive - Nov/Dec 2020

The Nourish program completed a successful holiday food drive to benefit the Crescent Care health clinic, collecting the following items:

Bouillon cubes (6 small boxes, 1 large box), Cake icing (5 cans), Cake mix (31 boxes), Canned chipotles (4 cans), Canned fruit (4 commercial, 36 small cans, 1 package), Canned green beans (76 cans), Canned refried beans (33 cans), Canned sweet corn (30 small cans, 2 commercial), Canned tomatoes (50 cans), Condiments (4 soy sauce, 3 mayo, 1 catsup, 3 BBQ), Corn masa mix (9 lbs.), Creole seasoning (8 small packages, 1 32 oz. package), Disposable cake pans (21 pans), Dried black beans (18 lbs.), Dried navy beans (6 lbs.), Dried pinto beans (7 lbs.), Dried red beans (46 lbs.), Kosher salt (1 package), Pasta sauce (8 jars), Rice (53 lbs. white, 19 lbs. brown, 8 boxes Spanish rice), Spaghetti and other pasta (43 lbs. spaghetti, 47 boxes mac+cheese, 4 packages ramen, 17 lbs. other pasta), Spices (2 salt + pepper, 2 pepper, 3 oregano, 4 bay leaves, 2 basil, 5 onion, 7 garlic), Vegetable oil (7 qts.), Miscellaneous canned goods (28 cans entrees, 7 cans milk, 13 other canned beans, 15 cans peas + spinach, 1 can cranberries, 18 cans tuna + chicken, 39 cans soup), Miscellaneous (2 bags nuts, 13 packets entrees, 2 boxes pancake mix, 2 boxes grits, cereal, 1 bag tortilla chips, 3 boxes stuffing, 3 boxes cornbread, 1 jar apple juice, 3 lbs. coffee, 2 boxes muffin mix, 1 box bread mix, 3 packages oatmeal, 2 jars peanut butter, 10 qts. milk, 3 lbs. cherries)

Thank you to all who donated!!

COVID-19 Health Care Workers Take Home Meal Program

In April, the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans announced a partnership with the Jewish Endowment Foundation of Louisiana, Humana, Metairie Bank, and the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest to launch the Greater New Orleans Jewish Community Healthcare Workers Take Home Meal Program. On June 30, the program wrapped up (for now!).

Thanks to these co-sponsors, additional support from Baptist Community Ministries, as well as the generosity of several individual donors, we were able to serve take home meals to frontline medical staff and hospital workers, from the intensive care unit to the laundry room, at five area hospitals - Ochsner Health, Touro Infirmary, Tulane Medical Center, East Jefferson Hospital, and New Orleans East Hospital - over a ten-week period. In total, 6,600 meals were served to our community heroes!

We were also able to support three small Jewish businesses in our community - Kosher Cajun, Rimon at Tulane Hillel, and Dvash Catering - who created the delicious meals each week.

We are deeply appreciative of the dozens of volunteers from the Greater New Orleans Jewish community who helped distribute the meals each Tuesday.

On June 30, we publicly thanked our catering partners and volunteers, and thanked the frontline workers who have worked so hard to keep us safe. Check out the video here:

A special message for the Greater New Orleans Jewish Community, from Tulane Medical Center:

Community Mitzvah Day - November 3, 2019

The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans held its first ever community-wide multi-faith service day on Sunday, November 3 at the Couturie Forest in City Park. Projects included tree planting and trash pickup, and one of the newly planted trees was designated the “Tree of Life” at a special dedication ceremony to honor the victims of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue attack and all other victims of hate and discrimination.

In total, 

• Over 40 volunteers participated,
• Over 70 trees were planted, and 
• Over 60 pounds of trash was picked up!

The Federation is proud to have had our Community Mitzvah Day as an official partner event of the 7th annual Jewish Culture Days of Halle, Germany - also the site of a recent anti-Semitic attack.