By Andrea Abel
Special to The Jewish Outlook

The University of Texas at Austin became the second campus where a Challah for Hunger chapter formed, baking its first loaves in fall 2006.

Winkelman launched Challah for Hunger while a student at Scripps College, part of Claremont Colleges (see story in Community section).

“Eli was still in the process of figuring out how to grow it beyond her first chapter on the West Coast,” Sack said. “It was kind of an experiment for her to bring it to UT Hillel. We used her challah recipe, and we worked together with Jonathan Panzer to make it happen.”

Panzer, an active student leader at Hillel while in school at UT, became Challah for Hunger’s first chair. He is the son of Austinites Ira and Miriam Panzer.

Sack said, “The neat thing for Texas Hillel is that Challah for Hunger is a wonderful program on its own — baking challah and donating the money to the American Jewish World Service — AJWS — on behalf of Darfur.

“The other piece that I love is that it’s what I call a low-barrier program. Which means it’s easy to just come into a kitchen and be with a bunch of other students and have a good time making challah. It’s a wonderful first step to get people involved in what we do here at Hillel.”

At UT, Challah for Hunger is a program of the White Rose Society, a Hillel student organization dedicated to Holocaust education and genocide awareness at UT. The society serves as the Darfur organization on campus, Sack said.

“We have leaders of one of the premier programs at Hillel who are not Jewish,” she said. “Personally, I think that’s great. We have Jews and non-Jews alike who feel very strongly about the social justice aspect of doing right in the world and educating our campus about the Holocaust and learning the lessons from that.”

Today, Jason Meschin — a junior biology major from Austin — serves as UT’s Challah for Hunger chair. A non-Jew, he stumbled into Challah for Hunger as a freshman at an informational table set up by the White Rose Society in Jester dormitory. He started baking with the organization that same year. Michael Cuellar co-chairs Challah for Hunger.

Like many of the Challah for Hunger chapters, UT’s chapter uses Facebook, a social networking Web site, to create buzz about the organization and keep volunteers and challah buyers apprised of events.

Meschin walked through the weekly process: “We prepare the dough at the Texas Hillel every Wednesday and bake every Thursday. We typically make around 30-35 loaves a week.” Loaves are sold on the West Mall every Thursday. Sales have been down a bit this fall, which Meschin suspects may be due to the economy paired with frequent rain.

“We sell chocolate chip and original,” Meschin said. “We sell for $5 a loaf, but if you do one of our action items, then you get a $2 discount.”

Action items change weekly but generally include writing letters or calling elected officials, asking them to make genocide prevention a top priority for U.S. foreign policy.

The UT chapter donates all its profits to American Jewish World Service’s Darfur Action Campaign.

“They (AJWS) are really well known for sending 81 cents for every dollar that you give them to the actual charity. Then, they have people on the ground at refugee camps in Chad for Darfurians who have been pushed out of their homes due to the genocide going on in Darfur. Our money helps provide them with food, shelter and clean water,” Meschin said.

“The people that we’re trying to help don’t necessarily have much of the means to protect or help themselves,” he said. “They need us to cry out to the world and say, ‘Hey, look what’s going on here.’

“Part of what makes the White Rose Society so special is, we bring those kinds of things (human rights atrocities) to light. Challah for Hunger is an opportunity to have a direct effect on those people who are really suffering in Chad.”

For more information about the UT-Austin chapter, visit the Web sites www.texashillel.org and www.thewhiterosesociety.org, or search “UT Challah for Hunger” on Facebook.