Our Update #24
Inmate Visitors Program:
Throughout the summer weeks our fleet of dedicated volunteers have been driving families to visit their loved ones in prison. Additionally, our volunteers have taken a special personal interest in inmates by visiting them and encouraging them.
One specific inmate who has been in isolation for the past weeks and had completely given up hope and had gone on starvation, was literally saved from despair and hopelessness by our volunteers who spent hours encouraging him, entertaining him and purchasing food for him to break his starvation on.
Thank you to our devoted and caring volunteers for bringing life and hope into forlorn prison cells.
Legal Team:
Our esteemed Ruv, Rabbi Stein, who has recently undergone numerous surgeries, didn’t allow his personal medical needs affect his ability to help his brethren in need. Our esteemed Ruv strained himself to meet with lawyers and our legal team to assist numerous important cases.
Food Program:
Thank you to Chaim Hersh Kaufman from Aperion catering for sponsoring hundreds of delicious and gourmet meals for our unfortunate incarcerated brothers. A special thanks to our food program coordinator Lazer Reichberg and to our devoted volunteer Shia Usher Weisssblum for dedicating time to assist with arranging and packaging the food packages. The positive affect which this food has on the inmates is evident from the following letter which we recently received from an inmate:
“I want to thank you for providing us with Kosher food in the visiting room. My father is in regular contact with someone from your office to give updates on when there is or isn’t food in the machines. It’s a major source of Chizuk to be able to sit with our families and eat real food (as apposed to the “common fare” in the dining hall) Geshmak! Thank you for providing such a Chessed for those of us here who are Frum.”
Family Support:
When mothers are at a loss as to what to tell their children about their father’s sudden disappearance, when children have inner emotional struggles, when a family suddenly finds their life in turmoil…. Dedicated professional therapists volunteer their time to meet with these families and guide them through this difficult period of their lives. Thank you to all our therapists for constantly being there for Dror and our families.
A special thank you to Rabbi Yaakov Dovid Klar for graciously giving hours of his time recently, despite his hectic schedule, to meet with a mother of a large family. He discussed each individual child’s needs, guided her as to how to deal with each child, is meeting with a child for an endless amount of time, contacted some of the children’s mentors and is helping restore stability to their home.
Amidst the Ocean Cruise:
Elite Productions recently held an amazing cruise to benefit Dror. Attendees enjoyed an incredible night of musical delight, a mouthwatering culinary experience, comedy show and an uplifting kumzitz on an exquisite yacht amidst the ocean.
Proceeds went towards our volunteer program-it enabled Dror to provide transportation for families to visit their loved ones in prison. Prisoners desperately await the visits from their family. The positive feeling these visits leave in the hearts of the mothers and children and the light it sheds into a forlorn cell are indescribable.
Thank you to the superstar singers Benny Friedman, Shmully Ungar, and Shimmy Engel; the Yedidim Choir; Musician Naftali Schnitzler and orchestra for rocking the boat.
Thank you to comedians Velvel Feldman and Yakov Yosef Langsam for giving everyone a good laugh.
Thank you to our food, sushi and beverage sponsors for making it an amazing culinary experience: Aperion Catering, Niki, Yehuda Edelman, Henich Friedman from Hagefen Wines, Smoker’s Choice, and Serviette.
Thank you to our corporate sponsors for making this event possible and for showing your support. (See brochure for a list of sponsors)
Thank you to Menachem Melamed and our devoted volunteer Berish Brunner for coordinating all the details of this amazing event!
Last but not least, thank you to all those who joined us. In the names of the families assisted by Dror, we thank you for your support!
A Simcha in Dror:
B’Chasdei Hashem, one of the Dror families recently celebrated the wedding of their son. After many years of incarceration and after missing countless Simchas in the family, the father was B”H granted permission to attend the wedding. The Simcha that was palpable in the air is indescribable. As our Menahel, Yoel Asher Labin, relates, “While dancing with the father, I felt like the father infused an abundance of Simcha into me and all the others”.
Dror joined in and celebrated this great Simcha by hosting a Dror Sheva Brochos for the family and for the Dror volunteers. It was a beautiful Simcha and brought incredible joy to the family as is evident from this email which we received from the father:
To my dear friends, I’m here to express my gratitude and thanks, but I have no words of how to express my thanks for sponsoring the great event of Thursday Sheva-Berukus. I hear that it was with great spirit and top top service. I really appreciate this and I will always remember what you do all the time. May Hashem bless you with all blessings and more and more good things come to you. All of you shall have nachas from your children and grandchildren. Good Shabbos with love and appreciation.
Thank you to Caterer Avrohom Yeshaya Kaufman, Badchan Yosef Chaim Rottenstreich and musicians Yitzchok Bernath and Son, Duvid Moshe Berkowitz and Chaim Refoel Ferancz for enhancing the Simcha.
4th Annual Dinner:
Our upcoming Freedom & Unity VIP Benefits Dinner is fast approaching, on Thursday, September 10th at the Broad Street Ballroom. Preparations are in full swing to make this dinner a unique and successful event. In attendance will be countless government officials, prominent attorneys, dignitaries as well as Dror friends.
Mazel Tov:
Mazel Tov to Eluzer Elya Moskowitz upon his son’s engagement.
Mazel Tov to Eli Brociner upon his daughter’s wedding.
Mazel Tov to Moshe Shia Scheiner upon his daughter’s engagement.
Mazel Tov to Lazer Reichberg upon the birth of his baby girl.
Mazel Tov to Shlomo Rudnicki (Niki) upon the birth of his baby girl.
Mazel Tov to Nussie Gordon upon the birth of his baby girl
Mazel Tov to Yossi Schlussel upon moving into his new home. May his home be filled with Mazel and Simcha and be a home for him to continue his Chessed, Hachnosas Orchim and Mitzvos!
Nichum Aveilim:
We express our deepest feelings of sympathy to Mechy Morgenstern upon the tragic Petira of his sister. We wish him and the entire Morgenstern family only Besuros Tovos going forward. המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבילי ציון בירושלים.