Peninah Pick runs the Down the Aisle Kallah gemach, where she collects people’s surplus gifts and donates them to kallahs

Getting Started

When my father was niftar 15 years ago, I wanted to do something l’illui nishmaso. Around that time, I started noticing people asking what they could do with unneeded gifts they’d received and couldn’t return or exchange. One of my sisters-in-law in Lakewood was helping in a gemach that gives packages to kallahs, so I started collecting those gifts and sending them to that gemach.

When I was talking to my good friend Onit, she mentioned a friend of hers who was struggling financially; when this woman was a kallah, someone had given her some money to set up her house. What if, Onit and I brainstormed, we set up a gemach with all those unwanted gifts? Instead of fundraising for kallahs, we could give them the actual gifts!

I dedicated a room in my house to storing the objects people gave me, which were cluttering up their homes, then I’d give them to kallahs, saving them a significant amount of money.

When we first started, we sent out postcards to rabbanim, kallah teachers, and sheitelmachers letting them know what we were doing. At this point, we’re well-known, and I do very little advertising.

We started slow. We weren’t sure how big it would get — how many items could we give to any one girl? — but it has really mushroomed. People are very generous, and they’re happy to donate. I even have drop-off locations in Teaneck, Bergenfield, and Monsey.

I’ve serviced over 250 girls. I live in Passaic, and people mostly come from the tri-state area, but I’ve had kallahs come from Chicago, Virginia, Cleveland — many of them come to New York anyway to shop. I had seminary girls who took items to kallahs in Russia, or who brought gifts back to their madrichot in Israel, so we’ve become international.