The C Directory Blog

Every year, during the annual Yom Kippur remembrance service the congregation invites distinguished members of the community to talk about their departed loved ones. Mollie Pier was one of this year’s guests. She stood in front of the lectern facing congregation Temple Judea and said, “I remember my son, a New York physician, who was one of the first doctors to treat HIV/AIDS. Fifteen years ago he died of AIDS.” Mollie also recalled her devoted husband and loving parents.

And Mollie is distinguished. She’s also humble. She will tell you about the people that affected her life. Her parents who taught her how to give and her husband who showed her strength. She won’t tell you about the lives she affects and the community she helps daily.

After her son’s death, Mollie didn’t throw ashes upon herself in sorrow. Instead she continued her son’s fight. But this diminutive woman didn’t pick up a black bag and stethoscope. Instead, she cooked and delivered kosher meals for Project Chicken Soup (PCS), a Los Angeles based organization. PCS clients—men, women, and children with HIV/AIDS, receive Mollie’s meals two Sundays a month.

PCS began soon after her Mollie’s son’s death. Instead of wallowing in her loss, Mollie volunteered at Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. She says, “It was about that time Rabbi Janet Marder organized several sisterhoods in the San Fernando Valley to make brunch Sunday mornings at the AIDS ward at Sherman Oaks Hospital.” Jewish Family Services (JFS) liked the idea and asked Mollie and others to start PCS. “Six years later JFS dropped the project. PCS volunteers took it over as a non-profit organization.” Today they cook and deliver kosher, nutritious, tasty food that will serve several meals to more than one hundred people with HIV/AIDS. Their delivery area extends from Long Beach through most of Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley, an area covering more than fifty miles. Depending on the day, volunteers vary from twenty-five to fifty-five.

Mollie is less than five feet tall. She wears wire-rimmed glasses and hearing aids are hidden behind her short blonde hair. “My work with PCS makes me feel my son’s soul is still living. I feel I’m continuing his work with my cooking.” At the age of eighty-four, Mollie hustles around the kitchen providing guidance to young volunteers. With her red apron, white blouse, and hairnet, she looks like a Jewish Mrs. Santa Claus. She says, “As long as God gives me the energy and ability to do so, I’ll continue this work. I say a prayer daily that I’m still doing the work of ‘Tikun Olam’—Healing the World.”

Her prayers are obviously being answered. Mollie has the energy and perseverance to make hours of phone calls contacting clients and organizing food distribution. But she isn’t alone helping to heal the world.

Two Sundays a month forty-sixty men, women, and children volunteers crowd the door of Hirsh Family Kosher Kitchen on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles. Children from ages nine to fourteen may help if supervised by their parents. Many teens volunteer for community service credit at their schools. They often return because they love the work they are doing. Mollie says, “It was the only kitchen available and owned by JFS, and it’s a strictly kosher kitchen.” It is large enough to accommodate the huge number of volunteers, and it also has the necessary equipment to cook for all the clients. And the people helping out are happy. Though it’s difficult to arise on a Sunday morning, there are smiles on almost every face.

Sherry Ekin wears one of those smiles. She began her work at PCS in 1992. “I saw an article in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Supplement. I used to spend my Sundays with my dad. After he passed away I spoke to Mollie. She influenced my decision to give this day to PCS.”

Sherry started off as a chef. Then she led a team of workers preparing the meals. “Now I’m the treasurer,” she says. “I’m also the group volunteer coordinator.” Many of the volunteers are youth group members from surrounding synagogues.

Over the years Sherry has developed a special relationship to PCS volunteers and clients. “She’s the grandma.” Sherry points to Mollie who’s helping teens slice vegetables. “I’m the mom. We’re both concerned about the clients and their needs and get involved with their lives.”

Bob Spilka, a PCS client and volunteer, enthusiastically agrees. “Mollie is an extraordinary woman whom I’ve known for twelve years. Her compassion, patience, and understanding are flawless. Without her persistence in helping me, I don’t think I would be here now.”

Spilka, who has been HIV positive for twenty-five years, says, “PCS has been more than just a way for me to be able to afford to eat and pay bills. It is also aconnection to the Jewish Community. It’s a lifeline to friendly, caring people with smiles and compassion.”

Rod Bran, director of the project says, “We started cooking because we wanted to provide some Jewish comfort, some home cooked foods, so people could remember what it felt like to have a kosher meal. So we provide them with chicken soup and other Jewish foods that remind them of their heritage, their roots.”

“Most of our clients are not Jewish,” says Mollie. “When we started out they were. But in time, as more people requested our help, the Jewish background of the people needing our services faded. It is our belief—a Jewish belief, not to turn anybody away.”

PCS meals are more than chicken soup. One typical meal includes coleslaw, fruit salad, and barbecue chicken with potatoes, mixed vegetables, and cranberry nut cookies. As one client has said, “We don’t need a cure for AIDS, just send us Mollie’s potato knishes.”

Spilka, 61, says, “Meals are not only nourishing, they are tasty and attractively presented in containers that can be refrigerated or frozen for future use. With this disease (HIV), it is very difficult to prepare meals. PCS is a life saver.” A typical meal consists of 2 entrees, 2 soups, 2 salads, several kinds of vegetables, potatoes, pasta or rice, 2 kinds of desserts (cake and cookies) and more. Everything is fresh; nothing is frozen. PCS also accommodate clients with special dietary needs. All recipes are home made, often obtained from the best cook volunteers. They also provide breakfast packages. One volunteer couple, Myra and Wally Shapiro, spend much time and energy collecting household necessities—cleaning materials, paper goods, toiletries, and over the counter medicines, for gift distribution.

PCS doesn’t have a paid staff and does not charge its clients. Money and food are donated. Bran says, “We’re always looking for volunteers who want to cook, clean the kitchen, or deliver food.” PCS relies heavily on private contributions and the money received by a Mazon grant. Mazon is one of the largest privately supported philanthropic organizations addressing hunger in America.

Mollie says, “There are miracles inside each of us. We have the possibility, the knowledge, and the power to change the darkness of our lives to light, happiness, and prosperity.” So she does more than cook chicken soup on Sundays and hours on the phone managing PCS affairs. She heals the world in other ways by helping out with the nutrition program at the One Generation Senior Center in Reseda, California. She has also tutored reading at an elementary school. She says, “I bake for the Gay Men’s Chorus, bringing as many as five hundred cookies and muffins to each performance I attend.”

Mollie Piers connects people to support systems through her warm and caring nature. She encourages people to become involved with their community. Due to her kindness and encouragement, she has altered lives and saved souls. She is a human dynamo who has spent her Golden Years healing the world.
***

Related links

• No related posts found.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.