Kiddush Hashem: Three Jewish Organizations Provide Steel-Toe Work Boots for 30 Migrants who Graduated from Construction Safety Training Course

By Yehudit Garmaise

After Masbia handed out 3,000 much-needed shoes to the 20,000 asylum seekers who have arrived in NYC starting on Aug. 16, now that 30 of those migrants have completed a 40-hour safety construction worker safety course, Masbia, and two other Jewish organizations joined the migrants’ graduation ceremony in Staten Island on Sunday to hand out work boots.

Staten Island Shomrim volunteers and Leon Goldenberg, the CEO of Goldmont Realty Corp, were on hand on Nov. 13 to congratulate the 30 asylum seekers who graduated from a 40-hour safety training class that is legally required of anyone who wants to work on construction sites.

La Colmena, an NYC-based organization that helps the immigrant community to find work, provided the free site-safety training classes that are required to work on construction sites.

The newly trained graduates now can take big steps forward into the American workforce thanks to Goldmont Realty Corp., which sponsored the brand new steel-toe, Timberland construction boots that retail for $100 each.

"It is extremely important to give people back their dignity,” "I am proud to sponsor those OSHA-approved boots.

The son of Holocaust survivors, Goldenberg said that when his father came to the US in 1949, “he was looking for jobs that paid $15 a day.

“The migrants came to the US to pursue the American dream. Helping them to enter the labor force so that they can fend for themselves is a basic human right.”

Yesenia Mata, the executive director of La Colmena, an NYC-based organization that helps the immigrant community to find work and to advocate for themselves, explained that she “partnered up with Masbia to provide migrants with the tools and resources so they can advocate for themselves.”

“Newly-arrived migrants repeatedly tell relief workers, “I am here to work to provide for my family and contribute to society,” Mata explained. “It is just so beautiful to see [everyone] supporting one another.”