Some stories of how Emanu El Brotherhood & The Brotherhood Garage Sale has helped fellow community members.
May 27, 2012 – Brotherhood was making their first pickups and Alford mentioned to one of the women who had stuff to donate that one of his Student’s families home was burned down and they lost everything. His student lost her Prom Dress and was not going to Prom because they could not afford to get another dress. Our congregant’s daughter had two nice dresses that she had just purchased and offered to give them to my student. They were the exact size and looked beautiful on my student.
January 19, 2009 – Alford Bleeker handed a check to the President of Emanu El Brotherhood for $1,000. Alford announced that this money was mostly from a family of five who were down and out a year ago and needed some furniture and house hold goods. They had lost everything a month earlier and had moved to Houston to find work. The father nor mother had a job at the time and the three young girls were without smiles.
Alford was cleaning out the Brotherhood Garage Sale Site and the mother came in and asked if we had a mattress. We had some left and she picked out one. She said she would be back in a moment to take the mattress. She returned with her husband and three young girls. Alford asked how they were going to get the mattress to their home and they said they would carry it. He asked how far they were going and they answered just a mile. Alford offered to take them and loaded the mattress into his pick up and drove them to their apartment and helped them carry it in. Alford noticed that they had only a table and two chairs and not much else. He asked the oldest girl where they had been sleeping and she grabbed the blanket off the floor and said that that was their bed.
He drove them back to the garage sale site and loaded up two more beds, chairs, coffee table, sofa, dishes, silverware, cooking utensils, TV, and other odd and ends and delivered it to their apartment. They said that they would pay for the stuff when they could. Monday, January 18, 2010 the family spotted Alford at HEB and handed him a fist full of money. It is amazing that they recognized Alford and more so that they kept their word and paid for something that was just a Mitzvah from the Brotherhood and Congregation Emanu El.
Marilynne and I were waiting for the garage sale to get a new mattress and box springs so we could donate the old ones to the Brotherhood. Our maid said that her son was sleeping on a wet mattress that had been soaked in a fire. It so happened that it was the same fire as my student. So we were glad to give the mattress and box springs to her for him.