Anonymous Gift Helps Chabad House Go Green

In the small kitchenette at Chabad of Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania, big things are happening. From new Energy Star appliances to glass bake ware to low-flow aerators on the faucet, the room is undergoing a green transformation.

Not merely a money-saving move, the upgrades will go a long way in educating members of the Jewish center on the benefits of “pitching in,” said Rabbi Ely Rosenfeld.

“It’s something we all try to do at home,” Rosenfeld said. “To do it in the outside world is harder. We want to do it from A to Z and give it our all.”

The $50,000 project has been paid for by an anonymous donor from Fox Chapel.

The small kitchen, which serves as the hub for the center’s Friday night dinners, typically produced a mound of paper and plastic trash each week.

“We would get a delivery from a company in New York every three months that was piled high on two pallets,” Rosenfeld said.

Everything used to prepare the weekly community get-togethers was disposable, from plastic cups to foil pans to paper towels.

“We would use it and then there were vast amounts of stuff to throw away. It was just a pile of total environment-killing trash,” he said.

When a donor stepped in and offered to foot the bill, Rosenfeld decided he would happily toss the paper plates for good.

“It’s one more way to help the community,” he said.

Despite it being a small-scale project, Chabad Fox Chapel President Marc Rice said the work has the potential to reach a large audience.

“It’s great to educate the kids and show other community entities that this can be done,” he said. “You don’t have to be a major corporation to make a major impact. If everyone pitches in, you get results.”

With a regular crowd of up to 75 sharing Challah at the Friday night meals, member Alison Munin said the purchase of an energy-efficient dishwasher alone will save loads of trash from piling up at the landfill.

“We get a lot of people that come out for Sabbath dinners,” she said. “With an industrial dishwasher it will now enable us to use dishes and utensils instead of the disposable we used before.

“It will also be maximizing the storage space to make it easier for members of the community to come in and cook for holidays or any special occasion held at the center.”

Rosenfeld said the renovation fits his mission.

“We don’t want to just preach things, we want to act on them,” he said.