Community News

Chavurah Members Help Ease Food Insecurity in New Mexico

New Mexico Jewish Journal

30 Nov 2025 — 4 min read

Pictured are volunteers Roz Gibel, Acy DeBois, Annalisa DiNola, Ruthie Ma'ayan, Norm Levine, and Joan Levine all from Chavurat HaMidbar, as well as Marc Wunder and Ellen Light from Congregation Nahalat Shalom. Photo credit: Bart Wohl/nmjewishjournal.com

by Denise Suttle

Wednesday mornings at 10:00 AM you’ll find a dedicated group of Chavurah members and community teammates clad in sweats, ball caps, sneakers and aprons—ready to serve fellow New Mexicans. The Roadrunner Food Bank is the weekly destination, and filling boxes with hundreds of pounds of pasta, flour, rice, beans, fresh produce and canned foods is the goal.

For two hours, volunteers put into practice essential Jewish values such as “tzedakah” and “chesed,” as noted by Annalisa DiNola, a dedicated Chavurah volunteer. Not only do the Chaverim fill hungry bellies, but they also fill a particular need within themselves. Annalisa has found that, “Two hours of stress-free physical work a week, and the thought that, by performing it, we can help people in dire straits, makes us feel good in both body and spirit.”

Acy DeBois started volunteering with the Chavurah at Roadrunner because “it was a chance for me to connect with longtime and new Chavurah friends. We usually have the opportunity to work with another volunteer, so sometimes we chat for two hours.”

Scheduling is currently done by Chavurah member Barton Wohl, who works directly with the administration at Roadrunner to secure the shifts for the group. Sometimes other members of the Jewish community join in, as well as members of other volunteer organizations. The amount of food sorted and packed for deliveries across the state is staggering in scope.

At a recent November volunteer day, for the first time in 2.5+ years volunteering as a group, “we were tasked with sorting watermelons,” Bart said. “ I think we rejected about 25% of the watermelons we sorted and still got five or six totes out the door of the repack room. That means our small group (plus one other gentleman with us) sorted approximately 4600-5600 pounds of watermelons and got 3500-4200 pounds out the door. That was heavy lifting. We got over two tons of watermelons out the door!

“By way of comparison, when we repack rice, beans, pasta, or cereal in our usual shifts, we, plus another 4-10 people, usually load slightly over two pallets of 20-lb. cartons, meaning about 1400 or so pounds. When we sort and bag smaller produce, we usually get three or four totes out the door, meaning approximately 2100-2800 pounds. Our occasional bread shifts, including other volunteers, typically yield about 720-900 pounds of bread.”

The impact of the volunteers cannot be minimized. “Every hour of work we put in at the food bank results in more nutritious food reaching people in need. Not only people who qualify for food stamps suffer from hunger,” Annalisa said. “Many households have only one employed person in the family, and often have to make difficult choices in the allocation of their limited resources: housing, health, transportation, food, etc. This applies particularly to a state like New Mexico, where many people live under or barely above the threshold of poverty.”

Roadrunner works with local farmers, grocery stores, and food distributors to rescue tons of food from being discarded or destroyed. In recent years, donor contributions helped them to build refrigerated holding areas that enable them to accept large quantities of dairy and produce, providing needed protein and fresh food to clients.

Seeing the immediate results of their hard work is another benefit to the volunteers. “You can actually see the results of your work, with boxes piled high and ready to ship to various distribution points around the state, “ Acy said.

Is volunteering at Roadrunner a good option for you? Acy notes that while many Chavurah members volunteer in other ways or belong to book clubs or discussion groups for intellectual and social stimulation, “this is a different experience and offers a nice balance to other more cerebral activities.” Annalisa encourages Chavurah members to “come join us! It’s fun and you can do something really helpful in the company of nice people, chit chat while doing it, and make new friends.”

The next confirmed volunteer sessions for the Chavurah are 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM, Wednesday, December 3, December 10, December 17, and December 31. Sign up by contacting Bart at: barton2686@msn.com For more information about the Roadrunner Food Bank, follow this link: https://www.rrfb.org/.

Denise Suttle is the volunteer editor of the weekly newsletter of Chavurat HaMidbar, an egalitarian, eclectic-traditional community in Albuquerque, without a building or paid professional functionary, and whose prayer leaders and Torah readers are both men and women.

TIP JAR

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Shabbat with Friends: Recapturing Together the Joy of Shabbat
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Where the North Ends, A Novel by Hugo Moreno

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