Where Passion Meets Purpose: Ori’s Recipe for Hope at 14

Ori making soup for food insecure community members through Repair’s weekly program, Souper Saucers

At 14, Ori Goldmiller has already found the place where his passions and his purpose meet — a cutting board, a pot of soup, and a chance to help ensure that his neighbors have the food they need.

Most kids his age are still figuring out what they want to do after school. Ori already knows: he wants to cook, and he wants that cooking to matter.

Ori’s entry point to Jewish service began with his bar mitzvah project. “I love food. I love making food. I love eating food,” he said. “So when I was thinking about my mitzvah project, I knew I wanted to make food, and I wanted to make it into a way that we could help people.” Through a family connection, he joined Repair the World’s weekly Jewish service program with Souper Saucers, a Bay Area food recovery effort that transforms surplus ingredients from local markets, the Chase Center, and caterers into nourishing soups, applesauce, and ready-to-share meals for community fridges. 

But he did not stop when his bar mitzvah ended. Over a year later, Ori still spends his Wednesdays and often Sundays chopping vegetables, filling containers, and making sure good food reaches neighbors who need it.

What keeps him showing up is more than the cooking. It’s Repair the World’s approach: hands-on service, Jewish learning, reflection, and education about the issues he is volunteering to address. Drawing on teachings that emphasize feeding the hungry as a core expression of social change and imagine a future where no one is left without shelter or sustenance, he began to see the world differently, noticing bruised apples tossed because new inventory arrived, trays of untouched food scraped into the trash, and crates of bread destined for the landfill. He began to understand the scale of waste and the simple truth behind it.

“There’s a hunger problem in this world. The problem isn’t that we aren’t making enough food. There’s definitely enough food for everyone. It’s that we just can’t distribute it to everyone.”

Serving with Repair offers Ori a way to change that reality, one container at a time. It has also given him a community: a crew of regular volunteers he chops sweet potatoes with week after week, and mentors like Isky Chisty, who founded Souper Saucers and is someone he admires deeply. Isky is a dedicated leader and volunteer who has spent his life working toward social change, volunteering his time while also working professionally for Replate, a food recovery organization. “He’s spent his whole life in service, supporting food equity. His day job is food recovery, and he still does this in his free time.”

For Ori, these values are deeply tied to his Jewish identity. Service has shaped how he understands responsibility and privilege.

“Even if I have everything I need, many other people don’t. And I think it’s important to make the world just a little bit better by helping people who are in need.”

He also knows how heavy the world can feel right now. He feels it too. But he believes that choosing to act matters. “There’s always something you can do,” he said. “Even if you’re helping one person, you’re making their life better. You’re making their day better, and you’re bringing just a little more joy into the world.” Those small moments matter, he went on. “Yes, it’s hard times. Yes, there’s so much hopelessness. But that shouldn’t stop you from bringing a little bit more hope and a little bit more joy into the world.”

This year, Ori even rearranged his school schedule so he can keep volunteering every Wednesday. He knows the hours he spends chopping vegetables are part of something bigger, a Jewish service movement grounded in dignity, compassion, and community.

Ori may only be 14, but he already understands something profound: small acts, done consistently, can move the day toward hope.

And he plans to keep going.

Ori Goldmiller is an eighth grader at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. When he is not in class or volunteering with Souper Saucers, Ori can be found in the kitchen cooking and baking some of his favorite recipes, mountain biking in a local park, hanging out at Eden Village West, playing tabletop games with friends, or listening to one of his favorite podcasts.