In previous years, endless cartons of food, vegetables, matza, wine, eggs.... were certainly a trademark of Chasdei Yosef's Kimcha De'Pischa program. An entire street was blocked off to accommodate the thousands of people who came to pick up their Passover packages.

As time went on, in order to ensure greater discretion, the Passover packages were assembled at a central location, and then delivered directly to people's homes. Although this involved a lot of extra preparation, the dignity of the recipients was preserved.

This year - we are taking this a step further -sending food vouchers by registered mail directly to each family receiving assistance. This way, each family's privacy is respected, and they are able to shop at their convenience with the vouchers to purchase food for the holiday at a variety of stores.

Tens of thousands of families will be receiving their vouchers in the mail this week.

This Purim at our central soup kitchen in the Bucharim neighborhood, the place was so packed that we had to set up many tables outside of the building in order to cater to all of the needy people who came to celebrate Purim day with their extended family - Chasdei Yosef.

The festive atmosphere was enhanced by live music and singing. Although it was sad to see how many people have nowhere else to spend their holiday, we were happy to be able to provide a fun and friendly place for them to be. We thank all those generous friends who helped make this possible.

Our children's program, TALTAL, is now in full swing in our new building. Each group has 20 children who come for an afternoon of enjoyment and relief from their daily hardships. Greeted by a warm and caring staff, they spend 2½ hours under our supervision, receiving a hot and nutritious meal, assistance with their homework and recreational and enrichment activities.

Before Purim, we had a lively party at TALTAL, complete with singing and dancing.

Today was the graduation party for 17 women who finished their Basic Computer Skills course at Kisharon, our professional training center for women whose families are suffering from financial distress.

Computer skills are an essential component needed for a job in every field. In addition to the graduates themselves, many other important people attended the event, among them: Rut Shapira - director of the Welfare services of Northern Jerusalem and Etty Dassa - director of the Employment Division of the Jerusalem Municipality. We congratulate our students on their hard work and wish them success in the future!

Our soup kitchen in the Jerusalem poverty-stricken neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel is up and running successfully. Roughly 50 people eat at the premises every day, while an additional 20 receive meals directly to their homes.

This branch is a pilot program implemented by Chasdei Yosef as an attempt to make soup kitchens more accessible to those in need, particularly for elderly people who have difficulty traveling to the main branch every day. The food is transported to Kiryat Yovel - eliminating the need for expensive kitchen equipment and significantly reducing the costs incurred to run the additional branch. In this manner - we will be able to open up additional branches at a minimal cost.

Like every year, we had a special Tu Bishvat feast at our soup kitchen. We distributed fresh and dried fruit to all of our diners, and each person received a package of dried fruit to take home. There was a festive atmosphere and everyone sang and clapped. Happy New Year for Trees!

This weather this winter reached a devastating low - leaving people all over the country shivering. More than 5 people died from hypothermia.

Requests poured into our office for assistance. Interestingly enough, there were fewer requests this year for heaters, but many more for warm blankets. We distributed a total of 1600 heaters, and 4650 winter blankets.

20 students from Stern College came to volunteer at Chasdei Yosef. The timing was perfect - we needed a lot of manpower (or woman-power!!) to set up for a huge clothing distribution at our soup kitchen, in order to enable as many people as possible to receive warm clothing for the upcoming drop in temperatures.

People requesting assistance received a 100 shekel voucher to "purchase" items at the sale.

Thank you to all the students from Stern, who volunteered their time and energy to arrange all of the clothing, and enabled hundreds of needy individuals to have warm clothing, at no cost.

After being cleared of all charges taking bribes, breach of trust and obstructing police investigating allegations that she had abused her position to influence the appointment of senior tax officials in return for tax benefits, Shula Zaken came to Chasdei Yosef to offer her Thanksgiving in the form of participating in the cost of a meal, and volunteering to hand out the meals, and blankets.

On January 7th, The Deri's married off their son, Yanky. Former Minister Aryeh Deri came with his son, the groom, and distributed the meals on the Friday preceding the wedding. Mazal Tov - may they merit to build a Bayit Neeman B'Yisrael!