This afternoon, approximately 15 volunteers converged on the storage facilities containing the abandoned Shaimos to begin collecting the bags and boxes.

Equipped with a truck, the volunteers shlepped hundreds of bags and boxes of Shaimos, loading them onto the truck to prepare for burial.

Even after cutting his finger on some glass, Dave F. of Ari’z Car Rentals continued to shlep bags of Shaimos. Dave was also very instrumental in bringing the whole fiasco to our attention last Friday.

”It was a beautiful site to see,” says Ben M., the one who put in the bids and won the auctions on behalf of the TLS team, and who coordinated the cleanup efforts. “Here you have people who were working all day, and after a full days work came to help with a Mitzvah which they weren’t responsible for and for someone they don’t even know.”

The cleanup of the storage units began around 6:30 PM, and ended after 10:00 PM.

But after a few hours, the first truck was filled to capacity, and a second truck was needed.

Within minutes, Szmidty got in touch with Bikur Cholim of Lakewood, who agreed to lend out one of their trucks. A short time later, that second truck was loaded up too.

The trucks will over the next few days be brought to the burial location.

As earlier reported, the person responsible for the incident will be paying all expenses involved in burying the Shaimos.

Several others are deserving of credit for the operation: The LBS (Lakewood Building Supply) for donating trash bags, Lipa’s Munch for bringing food to the volunteers, Committeeman Menashe Miller, Yitzy K., Eli B. Moshe A., Yossi B., Joey Biala, Elazar E., Aaaron and Dovid Taplan of Capital Seforim, Osniel Rozen, Avi Herskowitz, Bin Mandel, Reuven Rosenfeld, NJ Heating & Air and Yossi Max.

[Videos and Photos by TLS-95]