A community food warrior inspired by tikkun olam

Danielle Morris has always been involved in charitable endeavors, including making sure people in her community who are suffering from food insecurity don’t fall through the cracks when they are hungry.

But it took a MOMentum Trip in 2013 for Danielle to learn that Judaism has a name for the type of work she’s always been passionate about: tikkun olam, or repairing the world.

“I’ve always wanted to make the world a better place, for my kids, and for my community,” Danielle said. “But before Momentum, I had never really understood the phrase tikkun olam. My motto is ‘gratitude is the attitude,’ because no matter what I have given or done, I always feel like I’ve received so much more. I found that this idea of ‘gratitude is the attitude’ and tikkun olam really complement each other, and help describe the kind of model I’m trying to set for my kids.”

Those who are hungry

There are two things that concern Danielle most all: waste and hunger. And unfortunately in North America, there is both an incredible amount of food waste, and an incredible amount of hunger.

Danielle manages almost a dozen different “Hungry Groups” around her home north of Toronto. These are Facebook groups where people can offer or ask for meals or extra help if they’re in a challenging period. “It started with one group, and it spawned at least eight other groups, and there are thousands of people involved now,” Danielle explained.

The premise for a Hungry Group is simple. If you make a big pot of chili or cholent, and you don’t finish it, you can offer it to the group instead of throwing it away. Or, maybe you’re a single mom who is out of money before her next paycheck, and needs help with packed lunches for three kids. “Sometimes it’s about feeding people who are in need, and sometimes it’s about making sure good food doesn’t go to waste,” Danielle explained. “We provide quick access to emergency food. We’re not meant to be your first resort; we’re meant to be your last resort.”

Danielle said that food banks can’t always meet needs, and it’s often these community-driven initiatives that can act as a stopgap measure during difficult periods.
“A lot of the time, the people that are in need are the first to raise their hand to help,” Danielle added. “Sometimes it can be really demoralizing to hear these difficult stories and to see how much need and hunger is in our communities. But many people who are struggling, even when they’re down to their last few dollars, continue to give. When I see someone in need still putting together things for someone who is more in need at that moment, it restores my faith in humanity.”

Danielle’s professional life is almost as varied as her volunteer work, including practicing real estate, studying for her private investigator license, writing a book about how to save money, creating art, and flipping furniture with her husband.

The biggest thing that she’s learned from running the Hungry Groups is that in general, people really do want to help. “If you provide a forum, it’s easier to give and get help. So what I do is provide a forum, and people take it from there,” Danielle said. Danielle and her family support over 70 people a month with food or directions to food resources. They are well-known in the community for being exceptionally connected and resourceful, and sometimes people turn to them for help with other things, like helping recently arrived refugees or women fleeing domestic violence to find apartments and furniture.

Together with her husband, she often rescues things discarded on the streets and fixes or refurbishes them so they can gain new life. “We call it ‘profitable dog walking,’ because on our dog walks, we collect so much stuff that people throw out that are still good and have life in them,” she said.

Shabbat dinner and challah for all

Before Danielle arrived in Israel, she was anxious about MOMentum Trip classes, worried that they might be “too Jewish.” But they ended up being one of her favorite parts of the experience. “The lectures were just so interesting and engaging, and they really resonated with my life,” she said. “They were informative, and fun as well.”

The classes helped her learn not to sweat the small stuff, and to be more compassionate towards herself and her family in times of stress, including accepting that sometimes, the house is just going to be messy, and that’s okay.

“I came home from Israel and I had a million ideas and thoughts, and my husband was like, ‘okay, dear, that’s very nice.’ But a year later, he went on the MoMENtum Men’s Trip, and he called me from Israel and said ‘Okay, I get it! Now that I’m here, I understand. I’ve got all these ideas too!’” That conversation still makes her tear up, almost a decade later.

The biggest family tradition inspired by her MOMentum Trip was her commitment to family Shabbat dinners. “Family dinners have always been really important to me, and we try to make it work several times a week, but Friday night is very important,” she said. “I tell my family not to make plans so we can be together.”

Of course, for someone as dedicated to food as Danielle, Shabbat often includes home-baked challah. It should come as no surprise, though, that she almost always bakes many more challahs than her own family needs. “I usually give away a few challahs, too,” she said. “I’ve run challah bakes for the community, as well.”

Danielle said that the Momentum family has become a huge part of her life, and she’s recruited many other moms for the trips. She cherishes the memories made on the trips and also the special family times celebrating Shabbat and other Jewish holidays which were inspired by her involvement in Momentum.

“I just love that feeling of connectedness,” she said. “Of course, the food is a big part, but it’s also about feeling connected to Judaism as a family, and as a community.”