Two years ago, Scripps College senior Elisabeth Winkelman used her now famous recipe for baking challah bread to raise money for victims of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Her program, Challah for Hunger, is expanding to campuses across the nation, including NYU, Smith College, University of Rochester, and University of Texas at Austin, with more to come, and has received recognition from Elie Wiesel and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of England.
Winkelman and her classmates at Scripps College, just outside of Los Angeles, bake the traditional Jewish sweet bread on Thursday evenings, and sell it the next day to The Claremont Colleges community, with all proceeds—$20,000 to date—going to the growing Sudanese refugee population.
“To help stop the genocide, we have to educate people, write letters to elected officials and news outlets, and eat challah,” says Winkelman, who is working with Columbia University and the University of Florida to launch Challah for Hunger chapters there. “I’ve watched people who knew nothing about Darfur approach our table to buy bread, and then spend half an hour learning about the situation. Everyone sees that we all have to be aware world citizens, and that you can make a difference in the world, even through something as simple as bread.”
The organization also encourages advocacy, offering customers a discount if they write a letter or make a phone call to an elected official or media outlet about the situation in the Sudan. So far, Challah for Hunger has sent hundreds of letters to Washington and more than $20,000 to the American Jewish World Service Emergency Appeal for Darfur. The money is used for humanitarian relief efforts, particularly for programs relating to women and children who’ve been harmed.
“We have a great group of people who get together on Thursday nights, have an amazing time baking, and then, through all the fun, end up raising money to help people in dire need in Sudan,” said Amy Mann, Scripps ’09, 2006-07 products manager. For more information about the Challah for Hunger organization, visit their website at www.challahforhunger.org.