Women to Watch: Rubin Fortunato Celebrates Inspiring Women Leaders — Fran Held
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March 28, 2024
During Women’s History Month, Rubin Fortunato is celebrating remarkable contemporary women who drive the conversation for change. Today, Rubin Fortunato spotlights Fran Held, who founded the non-profit Mitzvah Circle to provide families in crisis with donated and purchased essential items to meet their most basic needs – all with hope, dignity, and respect.
It all started very organically, more than 15 years ago, with a phone call Fran received from a soccer coach she didn’t know: “I hear you’re a lady who will help when no one else will.” Seeing the opportunity to make a difference, Fran began coordinating the collection and delivery of basic material goods to a single mom fighting cancer. It wasn’t long after that Fran founded the Mitzvah Circle to provide free, ongoing help to those who otherwise fall through what Fran refers to as “the care gaps” that exist between a family’s needs and what government assistance and other safety net programs provide. Fran says that it is as simple as identifying a need and understanding how to meet it: “We remove barriers, eliminate bureaucracy, and distribute customized care packages containing clothing, shoes, diapers, period supplies, books, household goods, and toiletries.”
From its humble start in Fran’s garage, the Mitzvah Circle now occupies a 10,000 square foot facility in Norristown. It’s impressive. When we arrived at 10:00 a.m., it was already buzzing with 10 people on staff (including three social workers, one of whom is bilingual), six or more interns, and at least a dozen volunteers who were reviewing and sorting the gently used clothes into plastic tubs that are labelled by gender, size, and season, then stacked on industrial shelving that reaches toward the ceiling. Everyone was busy, and everyone was smiling. The empty shelves were empty only because the individualized care packages had already been picked up that morning – as they are every morning – by volunteer drivers, for direct delivery to client homes or to intermediary partner organizations and social workers located throughout Philadelphia, Chester, Delaware, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties. Other volunteers were working to clear an area for a tractor-trailer truckload of diapers, pallets and pallets of them, scheduled to arrive soon.
In 2023, Mitzvah Circle distributed 3.4 million diapers to families who, without them, could not take their children to daycare or go to work. Equally impactful, and underscoring the importance of addressing period poverty, the foundation gave out more than 800,000 pads to over 300 organizations, including 125 schools, community centers, YMCAs, and libraries. Fran explains: “Only with a full array of life’s essentials can we begin to break the cycle of crisis and poverty.”
With more than 73,000 families served in 2023 alone, the Mitzvah Circle reaches every corner of southeastern Pennsylvania, and the list of partnership organizations is long, with many recognizable names: Phillies, Amazon, Target, Merck, Bombas, Huggies, and Gerber. But, it’s the 350 volunteers who show up each month that makes the Mitzvah Circle a truly extraordinary community effort that taps into the goodness that Fran sees in others: “People really want to do good things; they just need to find a place to plug in.”
Rubin Fortunato celebrates Fran and the many Mitzvah Circle volunteers who strengthen our communities and inspire us by making a difference. To learn how you can help support the Mitzvah Circle or for tickets to its upcoming fundraiser, A Night of Music and Art, on May 9, visit https://mitzvahcircle.org/ or follow them on Instagram.
