TORONTO - Volunteers delivered food for Purim (Mishloach Manot) to 1,500 needy members of the Jewish community on Sunday thanks to a successful fundraising drive spearheaded by staff at B’nai Brith Canada.

About 100 volunteers started arriving at B’nai Brith headquarters shortly after 8 a.m. on Sunday. They were treated to coffee and breakfast before embarking on their delivery routes, which may have been anywhere between Toronto’s lakeshore up to Richmond Hill and from Scarborough across to Etobicoke.

Volunteers had helped pack the cloth bags with food earlier in the week.

“It was a wonderful team effort,” said Pearl Gladman, national director of community action, B’nai Brith Canada. “For a lot of the people who received the food, this may be their only connection to the Jewish community. Their feedback, whether in person, over the phone or by email, tells us this is a most worthwhile program.”

B’nai Brith will be raising funds and enlisting volunteers to deliver Chanukah baskets on Dec. 1, she added. For more information, call Pearl Gladman at (416) 633-6224 ext. 108.

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