Communal Meals - Hot meals are served in community dining rooms in the former Soviet Union and parts of Central and Eastern Europe for destitute Jewish elderly as well as children and their families.

Elderly clients attend Day Center once a week for meals, medical care, exercise, physical therapy, lectures, and social activities.

Recently introduced in many Hesed welfare centers in the former Soviet Union, Food Cards, or “supermarket debit cards” enable clients to purchase products of their choice (with the exception of alcohol and cigarettes) at stores vetted by the Hesed for selection and price. The initiative gives clients access to fresher ingredients while restoring their sense of control over personal needs. The cards are also improving the efficiency of the Hesed network’s food delivery service and are replacing other food programs. Supermarket debit cards are also provided to vulnerable young Jewish families through the IFCJ-JDC Partnership for Children in the FSU, to needy Jews in Europe, and as part of the social assistance programs in Argentina.

Monthly packages containing items such as oil, sugar, rice, grains, tea, pasta, and condensed milk are provided to elderly who are able to cook for themselves, and to vulnerable children and their families.

Part of the Hesed network’s hunger relief program in the former Soviet Union and also distributed to impoverished Jews in Europe, the sets may include fish, dairy products, eggs, fruit, and other perishable items. They are delivered primarily to needy elderly Jews who lack the strength or mobility to go to the market regularly, but are still able to cook for themselves; and to vulnerable Jewish children and their families who depend on JDC assistance to meet their basic needs.

Named for the Hebrew word for “kindness, compassion or benevolence,” JDC’s welfare centers in the former Soviet Union (FSU) embody the "charitable deeds" and "acts of loving kindness" encapsulated in this term. The Hesed welfare program (or simply Hesed, as the system has come to be known) is JDC's unique, community-based relief approach in the FSU, which was first implemented in 1993 in St. Petersburg in response to the stark needs of impoverished, elderly Jews. Promoting Jewish communal development was an integral part of this effort; hence the program was deliberately designed to cultivate self-sufficiency and build a cadre of trained Jewish professionals and volunteers. The network of Hesed centers subsequently established by JDC in tandem with the local Jewish populations provides a wide range of social services throughout the length and breadth of the FSU. The centers operate on three basic principles: total community involvement, volunteerism, and service provision in an atmosphere of Yiddishkeit. Hesed’s unique form of caring was recognized by the Russian Academy of Languages, which adopted the word “hesed” as a new Russian word meaning “the provision of social services with special compassion.”

Developed by JDC to reach the thousands of needy Jews living in small towns and shtetls far from Hesed centers, Hesed Mobiles use specially trained staff to fan out to remote locations, bringing food, medicine, winter relief, and Jewish books and periodicals to these impoverished and isolated Jews.  Staff members also arrange for neighbors to assist their clients, and they provide help with urgent household repairs.

Home care workers assist homebound elderly with basic activities of daily living such as bathing, laundry, and cleaning; and help support the healthy growth and development of ill, homebound children.

Cooked meals are delivered to those elderly or children and their families who are homebound and immobile.

Medical care includes medicines, medical tests and consultations, rehabilitation treatment and equipment, hospitalization, and surgery.

SOS Emergency Funds maintained by Hesed welfare centers in the former Soviet Union offer prompt help for urgent medical and other one-time special needs, including pressing home repairs. While elderly welfare clients are the primary  beneficiaries, any member of the Jewish community, regardless of age or pension status, may apply to the Hesed’s Emergency Assistance Committee for help up to three times per year.

An important part of Jewish community welfare services in various countries in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, and Asia, the winter relief program helps beneficiaries—mostly elderly Jewish Holocaust survivors and also impoverished children—purchase warm clothing, blankets, and non-perishable foods and pay their home heating and utility bills.