Over the past few months, hundreds of meals, friendly phone calls, shopping lists shopped for and acts of kindness are being done for Holocaust Survivors and Homebound Seniors all over South Florida.
Chabad of Southwest Broward, Florida, under the auspices of Rabbi Pinny and Gitty Andrusier‘s “Sunshine Circle”‘ has been busy as ever. “Being Shluchim in Florida, where a large part of the population is seniors, isolation and loneliness in a time like this is tremendous. I’ve been a Shliach here for over 28 years, and have never seen anything this hard for the Seniors, it’s harder than any hurricane we’ve had. I got an e-mail from a couple in our community that only had only eggs and apples left in their fridge and needed the cops to go out and shop for them”, said Rabbi Pinny.
Run by Rabbi Shimon and Liba Andrusier, Shluchim of Chabad of Century Village in Pembroke Pines, FL, “Sunshine Circle” has been serving Seniors in South Broward for over 6 years.
“Project Connect!” was founded specifically to assist the most vulnerable of this terrible pandemic – the seniors. Since its inception, the Shluchim have been assisting hundreds of Holocaust Survivors and seniors in quarantine with no family nearby.
“Our mission is to combat loneliness, provide friendship, prepared meals, basic necessities, and be an anchor for them,” said Rabbi Shimon Andrusier.
“We started Project Connect! after getting many calls from seniors and their children all over the world asking us to help their parents. Some are in need of prepared meals (since their home health aids have left them) some are extremely lonely and depressed and wanting some connection and many some ran out of basic necessities like toilet paper, paper towels, Tylenol or water,” said Rabbi Andrusier.
“I got a call from Rachel K., a 92-year-old Holocaust Survivor in our Village, who just lost her husband a few months ago, and her words to me were, ‘Rebbetzin, this is like another Holocaust,'” said Liba Andrusier. “Since her call, we have been sending prepared meals and homemade cards by children, and had a therapist from the Jewish Family Services call her to chat and been make sure that she is getting daily calls from our volunteers.”
“We had another senior, Tova, with many health issues, whose very close friend was Niftar, and she really wanted to be at the Levaya,” explains Liba. “Her doctor told her it was too dangerous for her to go, so we asked one of the people attending to ‘Facetime’ her through the entire Levaya, which they did. She was touched beyond words and felt like she was there. Another lady, Lilly, is 98 years old and has anemia. We got a call from her daughter in New Jersey that her mothers’ iron was really low and she couldn’t fly here, can we please buy her Kosher chopped liver. We immediatley got a volunteer to go to the Kosher store 20 minutes away and deliver the liver to Lilly. It’s these small things that our volunteers do, that are so big and mean so much to the seniors,” she says.
The Andrusiers have been featured for their dedicated work in the Forward’s “Everyday Heroes” column, for “taking care of grandparents — dozens of them.”
Anyone can get involved from anywhere by doing calls, writing or mailing letters or donating and be a part of this special Mitzvah.
For more info., go to www.sunshinecirclefl.com
