Meet… Leah Kestenbaum

I grew up in Brooklyn, in a chesed-oriented home. That atmosphere gets into your bones.

I believe that thoughtful people have the most refined personalities. My parents are that way, both in small and big ways. Every week of the summer, my parents fill vases with flowers and put them on the tables in our shul to elevate the atmosphere.

They’ve also been coordinating Shabbos meals for a girls’ group home in Brooklyn for over ten years. They’d heard that 30 girls needed food for Shabbos, and they sent everything — challah, dips, soup, mains, and desserts. After a while of doing that on their own every week, they coordinated the efforts, and now, each week, people contribute food. They drop it off at my parents’ house, and my parents deliver it to the home. Here and there, as a teenager, I’d bake something for the home for Shabbos.

When I was in high school, we had a chesed program, and I chose to do weekly baking for Chai Lifeline families. I’d bake fancy cupcakes and buy those three-tiered cake platters from Amazing Savings and wrap them up nicely. I guess the seeds of my initiative were sown back then.