American Friends of Leket Israel

Founded in 2003, Leket Israel serves as Israel's largest food bank and food rescue network, actively working to alleviate the problem of nutritional insecurity among Israel's diverse population. Statistics reveal that a quarter of Israel’s 7.7 million citizens (1.9 million people) are living in poverty; among them are some 850,000 hungry children. Yet, at the same time, literally hundreds of thousands of tons of perfectly good, nutritious food are needlessly destroyed each year. Furthermore, studies in Israel indicate that nearly a quarter of the country's population suffers from an imbalanced or insufficient diet due to poverty. The paradox of nutritional insecurity in the face of large scale food wastage led in 2003 to the establishment of Leket Israel (Formerly as Table to Table). Today, serving as the country's largest food bank and food rescue network, Leket Israel's primary mission is to alleviate the problem of nutritional insecurity through the rescue and redistribution of excess food to benefit Israel's needy. As an umbrella organization, Leket Israel also work's to assist at-risk population groups and the nonprofit organizations (NPOs) who serve them through nutrition education, cooperative purchasing, and food safety projects designed to improve professional standards among NPOs and other food provision agencies.

Each year, with the help of some 40,000 volunteers and dozens of paid workers, Leket Israel rescues over 700,000 hot meals, 90,000 loaves of bread and 13 million lbs of produce and perishable goods, for the benefit of the needy. In addition, Leket Israel supplies over 1 million (7,000/day) volunteer prepared sandwiches to underprivileged children from 100 schools in 25 cities. Food is reclaimed from hundreds of food suppliers and is then redistributed to nearly 300 partner NPOs assisting the poor, invalid-elderly, minorities, children, and at-risk population groups throughout Israel.

Thank you for your interest in Leket Israel. We invite you to support our organization, and to take an active role in food rescue and hunger alleviation in Israel.