Donating food isn't as easy as you may think

I was at a funeral in Chicago this weekend. Part of the Jewish burial process is that afterwards you sit shiva. It's a time for family and friends to come together, mourn the loss of a loved one, but also celebrate their life.

You can not imagine how much food is at these events. Not only does the family usually have it catered but everyone that comes to pay their respects brings something as well. For example, my mom dropped off three different cakes and a challah.

By Saturday night the majority of guests had come and gone but the majority of food still remained. Dozens of bagels, mounds of turkey, platters of baked goods, and piles of nuts.

My best friend who was hosting the shiva doesn't eat gluten or dairy, which means everything was going to go to waste. So, we needed to come up with an alternate plan. The problem was, it was after 11pm on a Saturday night and most of the homeless shelters we called wouldn't accept a random delivery at that time of night. I suggested that we set up a makeshift buffet on Lower Wacker Drive. For all those of you who aren't familiar with Chicago, it's a homeless hangout hot spot. Lower Wacker is an underground route around downtown, so there's a number of options for someone looking for shelter.

However, that plan wasn't as popular as I had hoped for with the masses. After about 60 more minutes of brainstorming we got in touch with someone at the Night Ministry who agreed to the late night, drive by, bagel drop off. Which meant we would be able to follow through with our mitzvah after all.