Sowing in Tears, Reaping in Joy: A Mid-Year Update from Leket Israel

Hi friends, Raymond here.

The mid-year report from Leket Israel arrived in my inbox this week, and I want to share it with you. If you have given to this work or prayed for it, this report is for you.

The first six months of 2026

You know what these six months were like in Israel. The year began quietly, after more than two years of war. Then, on February 28, war broke out with Iran. A ceasefire came on April 8 but missiles kept falling in the north well into the summer. Thank God, by July 1, Leket could finally say its operations were back to normal.

All the numbers below come from those same six months.

What Leket did from January to June

Every week, 346 partner charities delivered food to 470,000 Israelis in need.

The produce came from 488 farms and packing houses: 15,584 metric tons (over 34 million pounds) across 56 different crops. More than 1.1 million cooked meals were collected from corporate cafeterias and IDF bases, meals that would otherwise have been thrown away. There were also 335,566 servings of soup and vegetable dishes, 292 nutrition workshops in 50 municipalities, and 44,606 volunteers who did much of the work.

Assaf came home to his farm

One of those farmers is Assaf, 57, who grows artichokes with his son on Moshav Ram-On in the Gilboa region. A second-generation farmer, he has partnered with Leket for years.

Assaf just completed nearly 600 days of reserve duty. When he came home, he went straight back to his fields. He gave his surplus to Leket Israel, who distributed it to families who cannot afford it.

“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.”Psalm 126:5

After two very hard years, his harvest is feeding families across Israel right now.

The kitchen in Kiryat Shmona

In the north, our long-time partner Chabad of Kiryat Shmona lost its kitchen in 2024, when a missile from Lebanon destroyed the building and its equipment. Money raised through Leket paid to rebuild it, and the meals continued.

Then, during this spring’s war with Iran, the organization’s director was injured in another missile strike. He returned to work shortly afterward and continues to lead the organization.

These are the people your donations support.

What a dollar does here

Now, here is the part of the report I most want you to see as a donor.

Leket’s model is food rescue. The food already exists, growing in a field or cooked in a cafeteria. Your gift pays to collect it and deliver it to people who need it before it goes to waste. That is why the numbers work out so well. In 2024, rescuing and delivering all that food cost $14.6 million. At market prices, the food was worth $63.4 million.

About $4.30 of food for every rescue dollar, in a war year when Leket had to purchase far more food than usual.

In 2026, it costs about 20 cents to rescue and deliver a pound of fresh produce, and $1.61 for a full cooked meal. Compared with what that food is worth, produce rescue returns about five dollars of food for every dollar donated, and meal rescue about six.

And that only counts the food. Israel’s National Food Waste and Rescue Report, prepared with BDO, also counts the healthcare costs of hunger, the farmland and water saved, and the methane that is not released from landfills. When all of that is included, every dollar invested in food rescue generates an estimated $10.70 in value. Food insecurity costs Israel’s health system about $1.57 billion a year.

Rescuing food is five to six times more cost-effective than direct food assistance programs like food stamps. Very few charities can deliver this much value for each dollar.

Thank you

Between January and June, your donations helped supply 346 charities and deliver more than a million rescued meals. They also supported farmers like Assaf while they served in the army reserves.

If you would like to support this work in the second half of 2026, you can give here:

Donate Now

Shalom,

Written by Raymond MacDonald

Christian Friends of Leket Israel

Figures from Leket Israel’s Mid-Year Report, January 1 – June 30, 2026. Monetary values from Leket’s FY 2024 audit, at US$1 = NIS 3.7.