Manna Food Center, a nonprofit striving to end hunger in Montgomery County, is counting on the Jewish community to continue to think of the upcoming High Holidays as an opportunity to help those in need.

For the past 23 years, Manna has counted on synagogue members to donate food and money during the holidays in which fasting and reflection are stressed. This year, the goal is to expand its Harvest Against Hunger campaign to include more than last year’s 17 synagogues. During that campaign, 55,119 pounds of food were donated and $76,463 was raised, according to Manna CEO Craig Rice.

“I will tell you from the Jewish faith, from the belief of helping out a fellow neighbor and especially during the time of High Holiday, it really is important,” Rice said.

Many synagogues collect food throughout the year and often include a Yom Kippur drive. But thanks to a “friendly competition” many years ago between congregants at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville and Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Harvest Against Hunger has grown.

“The synagogue has been committed to this kind of work since it’s been around for 55 years,” said Beth Ami Senior Rabbi Gary Pokras. “There was always an annual food drive during the Jewish High Holidays.”

But many years ago, after speaking with former Adat Shalom Rabbi Cantor Rachel Hersh, who now is director of Jewish Enrichment and Engagement at JSSA, “The two of us, we came up with this crazy idea of having a contest with friendly trash-talking between synagogues to see who could feed more people. We thought this was a great way, a fun way, to do some real good in our community,” Pokras said.

“It started basically with just the two congregations,” he said. They reached out to Manna, which loved the idea.

“We asked them to make a trophy, like the Stanley Cup,” Pokras said. “Each year, the winner would be etched on the side. We wanted something that basically looked like a can of food. Manna took an actual can, bronzed it, stuck it on a wood block, and now we have our trophy.”

While Pokras is proud of his congregants’ donations, he doesn’t want to be victorious this year. “We have been winning, which is great for us. My goal for this year is that I want us to raise more per capita than we did last year, and I want us to lose,” he said, explaining that would mean another Montgomery County synagogue had really stepped up.

“The problem with hunger is, it is an ever-growing concern.”

Currently, Manna serves almost 11,000 families monthly. Some 34% of county residents are food insecure, meaning they are unable to afford one or more meals a week. Between 15 and 20% of residents are considered severely food insecure, meaning they cannot afford three or more meals a week.

In the weeks before the holidays, Beth Ami congregants fill four large blue bins several times over, but Pokras said they also donate financially to Manna. “If we just make a donation to Manna directly, they can leverage the same dollars that we would spend at the supermarket to get significantly more food, and the exact kind of food they need,” he explained.

During the early years, Manna received lots of boxes of matzah. “It started off that way,” Rice recalled. Then Manna let people know there was a need for “more nutritious food than religious food,” he said, adding, “We pretty much eliminated the matzah. That was a great evolution of the program.”

While Pokras explained that financial donations make up the bulk of his synagogue’s contributions, he thinks it is important for families with children to bring in food to enable the youngsters better understand the program.

Because the size of congregations varies, it wouldn’t be right to just hand the trophy to the larger synagogues which would have the easiest time collecting the most food and dollars, Pokras said. Instead, Manna takes the total weight of food contributed by each synagogue, divides that by the number of congregants, and comes up with a pound-per-person figure.

“That’s how they figure out who won,” Pokras said.

Last year, Beth Ami came out on top, contributing the equivalent of 23,000 pounds of food. “That’s just a crazy amount of food,” Pokras said.

The program is promoted on his synagogue’s social media, website and word of mouth. Also, “I usually do a semi-snarky challenge to the congregation. I tell them how wonderful they are,” he said. “People really come out. It’s extraordinary how much food we have been able to raise.”

Smaller donations are dropped off at Manna Food Center, but the nonprofit picks up the food when the amount is too much for members to tote.

Rice is hopeful that this year, not only will more synagogues participate, but so will those involved in Jewish nonprofits, as well.

While thus far Harvest Against Hunger has only included Jewish congregations, Rice would love to expand the program to other faiths. “That’s the hope and the plan,” he said, adding it would be great to have friendly competitions between those of the same faith as well as those of differing faiths.

Suzanne Pollak is a freelance writer.