Growing up, Eli Goldman has good memories of his family’s weekly Shabbat dinner. His mother would cook for hours preparing food to nourish(养育) not just her own family, but anyone nearby who needed a good meal. The act of feeding others left a lasting impression on Eli, who went on to work as a fundraiser for a non-profit specializing in feeding the hungry.
Like many others, Eli was working at home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That April, he was listening to a story on NPR about Italians lowering baskets of food from their balconies to feed their neighbors. He looked at his own situation, and came up with an idea.
“I realized I could do the same in Astoria,” Eli said. “So I started preparing bread and lowering it in a basket, and anyone who wanted to buy it from the street, could. I would then donate 100 percent of that money.” By May, Eli had moved on from bread to barbecue(烧烤). If someone can’t pay, they don’t have to. It’s just that simple.
At first, just a few people showed up to eat Eli’s delicious food. Over time, however, word about the good food spread, and soon he had lines of people waiting to purchase his food. Eli realized it was time to expand, so he formed Tikkum BBQ and reached out to community businesses to partner with them.
“Tikkun comes from ‘tikkun olam’, which in Judaism, means helping repair the world,” Eli explained, adding that he knows he won’t be able to repair all of the world’s problems with just barbecue, but stating, “To me, that meaning means that it is my responsibility to do whatever I can to help support my community.”
Two years later, Tikkum BBQ serves up to 100 people at a time. Eli’s dream of feeding the masses(群众) is working. Two years after lowering that first basket of bread to the sidewalk below, he has raised over $90,000 for his community!
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