Devorah Grayson grew up in a founding family in Greater Washington. She and her husband Dean have continued that legacy in their own lives. I grew up in the Woodside community. My parents, Rabbi Avrom & Mrs. Sarah Landesman, a”h, were founding members of the Woodside Synagogue. I live in Kemp Mill with my husband and five children. I am a donor and a volunteer at Yad Yehuda. I grew up in a home where community was paramount, a priority in everything that we did. I hope I relay that same message to my family. My husband Dean and I support several community organizations here. Dean runs the Men’s Chevra Kadisha and I run the Women’s Chevra Kadisha. We support various schools and shuls, as well as Bikur Cholim. But Yad Yehuda holds a special place in my heart. When my mother was growing up during World War II, she lived in Shanghai. There, the Jewish refugees were not allowed to work, so they had to rely on the community to support them. That’s something my mother found very difficult. So when she was able to give back, she spent the rest of her life giving back as much as she could—and she made that very important to her children too. My father was raised in a small town in Pennsylvania, where his mother cooked meals for the elderly, for people with illnesses and for the poor and his father raised much needed funds for the Jewish community and Israel. When I heard about Yad Yehuda, it was the perfect organization to both be a part of and to donate to. Yad Yehuda has found a way to help people in financial distress with the most dignity I have ever seen. I’ve been with the organization for, I think, eight or 10years.I think it’s amazing that they’re able to keep the identity of recipients totally private. In all my years of helping with fundraising or bringing food donations to the Capital Kosher Pantry, I’ve never been told any names of recipients. To come to Yad Yehuda, you make an appointment—so recipients don’t even see each other. Yad Yehuda is a place that makes everyone feel good—so, for me, donating there is a no-brainer. I’m just happy every time I have anything to do with Yad Yehuda. And that’s the best way to give.

Communities grow when they have a wonderful reputation. To have that kind of reputation, you have to have organizations—such as Yad Yehuda, Bikur Cholim, Chevra Kadisha, schools, shuls, and mikvahs—that work. And things don’t work by themselves. They work when people make them work. So it’s very important for our community to help efforts like Yad Yehuda because you’re not just helping people in need, you’re helping the community to be a whole entity that serves everybody. The only way people will see this community grow is by helping out. So we talk about that in our home–usually on Friday nights as we sit down to eat. We talk about others who may not have the same food on their tables, and what we could do as a family to make sure that people have a happy Shabbos table like ours. I tell my kids that some of the money that we donate to Yad Yehuda helps people who can’t put food on their table: so when you take a bite of your challah, recognize that somebody else is taking a bite of their challah thanks to our donations to Tomchei Shabbos. I think one of the highlights of Tomchei Shabbos is that a recipient gets a gift card and goes to the store to buy whatever they want for Shabbos. I get to make what I want for my family for Shabbos, and they get to do the same. I think that’s a beautiful thing. They don’t get boxes of groceries in which we’ve predetermined what they’re going to eat.Instead they not only purchase what they want for their family–but prepare it the way that their family likes, too. And that’s so much more respectful and dignified. I think that’s part of the beauty of Tomchei Shabbos, part of giving the recipients dignity. They’re not just getting—they’re also doing, and they’re doing for their own family. I think it makes them feel better, and I know it makes us feel better, too. The people that I work with at Yad Yehuda are some of the most selfless people I’ve ever met; they’re the kind of people that you want to be around because they make you feel good. I think Yad Yehuda is just very unique in that way. Nechemia Mond’s team has the unique ability to identify people’s needs–even before they know that they have those needs. He has built a team of people around him who work tirelessly toward the goal of bettering all our lives—not just the lives of people in need, but the lives of people who give, as well. It’s an environment I want to be in, an environment I choose to be in, and an environment I hope to continue to stay in and of course an organization that I want to continue to support financially.