The launch of Sports Wrap! has motivated athletes and their teams to address the issues of hunger which plague the cities they play for. Food from clubhouses is recovered and delivered to shelters and pantries. Mike and his wife Brooke Maroth of the Detroit Tigers are the first of many who voices and actions will speak for the voiceless to help end hunger.

Rock and Wrap It Up! Detroit volunteer Greg Fletcher's work was highlighted in Detroit Hours Magazine and inspired Brooke Maroth, wife of Pitcher Mike Maroth. 

2003 Rock and Wrap It Up! Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum Humanitarian Award winners, The Allman Brothers Band manager Burt Holman, Guitarist Warren Haynes, Jospeh and Lena Mandelbaum and Stephanie Scarmado Haynes 

Rock and Wrap It Up! Advisory Board Member Chip James with Warren Haynes receiving signed guitar from his successful silent auction bid.

Rock and Wrap It Up! friends Dr Sanjay Kirtane and wife Dr.Yash Kirtane with Chef David Boulee 

2003 Rock and Wrap It Up! Bill Emerson Award recipient Pi Lambda Phi International Fraternity, President Paul Kaufman, 2003 Jay Magazine Award recipient Chef David Boulee, 2003 Lena and Jospeh Mandelbaum Award winner The Allman Brothers Band received by Warren Haynes 

Sports Wrap! Drops Down from the Heavens, or Internet.

Mandelbaum received the most unexpected e-mail on May 2nd 2003. “Hi, My name is Brooke Maroth and my husband Mike is a pitcher on the Detroit Tigers. We read about your organization in Detroit Hours Magazine and we were very impressed. Mike says that there is always leftover food in the clubhouse and we were wondering if we could help feed the hungry with the food. Please get back to us if you can help us.” Mandelbaum saw an amazing new opportunity come his way. The same way he knew that many peopled looked up to Rock Stars, equal numbers idolized sports figures. If sports arenas and stadiums could be harvested like backstage at rock concerts, there was no reason not to pursue it. Why not have sports stars sign Certificates of Appreciation to help grow Rock and Wrap It Up! and its programs? Within days, a plan was in place and Greg Fletcher the Rock and Wrap It Up! volunteer regional director met with Brooke and Mike Maroth. By July, the first pickups were arranged and Sports Wrap! was born. Greg and Brooke met with Coamerica Stadium clubhouse manager Jim Schmakel. He was completely in favor of helping with the logistical and security arrangements. The food was picked up at the end of each home stand and brought directly to a 24 hour walk-in shelter blocks away from Coamerica Stadium. What started as an interview in a local magazine would become a national movement to further empower star athletes to help fight hunger. By the end of 2003, over 1500 pounds of food that had been prepared but not served was recovered from the Tiger clubhouse, helping to feed over 2000 people in Detroit’s inner city. Mike Maroth signed Certificates of Appreciation to honor students who started programs and to help Rock and Wrap It Up! fund-raise.
The 2003 Tribute Dinner was held again at Pier Sixty. The honorees were the Allman Brothers Band receiving the Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum Humanitarian Award, Pi Lambda Phi International Fraternity would receive the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award and Chef David Boulee receiving the Jay Magazine Award. The Allman Brothers Band were early supporters of Rock and Wrap It Up! through their manager Burt Holman. Burt had also arranged for a guitar to be signed by the band for the first Tribute Dinner in 2001, where a silent auction helped to raise more funds. Warren Haynes, their extraordinary guitarist would receive the award and play an acoustic set. The band had already accepted a gig to play at Bonnero, an outdoor festival in Tennessee the same week. Warren agreed to stay, attend the Tribute Dinner and meet the band the next day. Pi Lambda Phi Fraternity became a beacon for all service organizations and their determination to expect community service from their chapters doing food recovery was amazing. Chef David Boulee had a relationship with Rock and Wrap It Up! through the tragedy of 9/11.
In 1999, Mandelbaum was donated 100,000 one pound boxes of pasta were donated to Rock and Wrap It Up! by Russo’s on the Bay in Howard Beach Queens. Mandelbaum’s friend Barry Mayer, President of Loeb and Mayer Wholesale Foods had a storage facility in which he had room to donate space to Rock and Wrap It Up! In the days and weeks following 9/11, there was a call for food donations to be given to Chefs who were cooking for the massive recovery and clean up teams. Mandelbaum contacted the City and was told to speak to Chef Boulee. Rock and Wrap It Up! then delivered the 10,000 pounds of pasta. Chef Boulee cooked millions of plates of food for another 8 months after the tragedy. The Tribute Dinner was poignant. When Warren began to sing his signature song Soul Shine, thunder and lightening lit up the sky behind him and could be seen through the glass windows of the room.

President of the John F. Kennedy School of Politics at Harvard University and Former Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture Dan Glickman and Rock and Wrap It Up! CEO Syd Mandelbaum at United States Conference of Mayors annual meeting in Denver, CO, June, 2003. 

Dan Glickman and Syd Mandelbaum presenting to the Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee of the United States Conference of Mayors. 

Former Houston, TX Mayor Lee Brown. Mayor Brown co-sponsored the resolution supporting Rock and Wrap It Up! tactics. Brown serves on Rock and Wrap It Up!'s Advisory Board and works with the Mayors Initiative effort. 

Indianapolis, IN Mayor Bart Peterson, Chairman of the United States Conference of Mayors Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee who sponsored the resolution naming Rock and Wrap It Up! to help end hunger in cities. 

Fritz Edelstein and Syd Mandelbaum at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver, CO. Rock and Wrap It Up! volunteers recover food from this arena to feed the hungry of Denver.

The Genesis of the Mayors Initiative

In late 2002, Mandelbaum and Rock and Wrap It Up! received one of its most important phone calls. The possible implications could help RWU attain the goal of feeding all who hunger in the United States. Fritz Edelstein had left the U.S. Department of Education and took a position with the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) as Education Liaison to Cities. He asked Mandelbaum to come down to Washington to do a presentation to the USCM's Tom Mc Climon. Mandelbaum agreed and brought Rock and Wrap It Up! Board Member Bob Novello. They drove down and met with the USCM and had appointments with the National Hillel Foundation, and the National Association of collegiate Scholars. All the meetings were productive to help grow Rock and Wrap It Up! influence, but none more than the USCM. The meeting with the USCM answered questions about using RWU tactics to further feed the hungry. Two weeks went by and Mandelbaum was called by McClimon and Edelstein. A resolution was being crafted to be voted on at the National Meeting to be held in Denver, CO. Unbeknownst to Mandelbaum, there was a study just completed through the USCM and the results were devastating. There was a 9% grow in hunger in America from 1999-2002, and the Mayors of the USCM wanted to take action. In the resolution Rock and Wrap It Up! would be named as one of the agencies for cities to work with to help feed their indigent. It became a defining moment in the growth and direction of Rock and Wrap It Up! The organization would now be able to teach cities the successful tactics it had developed to help feed millions who hunger. The resolution would be presented through the Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee of the entire USCM. If it passed this group, it would have the support of the entire conference. Edelstein asked Mandelbaum to reach out to a rock star or supporter to introduce the resolution. Mandelbaum suggested Dan Glickman, the former Secretary of Agriculture and Director for the J.F. Kennedy School of Politics at Harvard University. He knew that the Kennedy School had a long relationship with the conference. Each Mayor was encouraged to attend a special two week "school" at Harvard through the J.F. Kennedy School Of Politics. Glickman was scheduled to fly to Denver to speak about the Kennedy School and he agreed to also address the A.P.E.S Committee about Rock and Wrap It Up!
The Committee was chaired by Bart Peterson, Mayor of Indianapolis. Mandelbaum attended a number functions on the first night he arrived in Denver. In the hotel, at the Texas Caucus, he met City of Dallas Administrator Mary Sohm, representing Mayor Laura Miller. He spoke to her at length about how Dallas could generate thousands of more plates of food by using Rock and Wrap It Up! tactics. Mandelbaum met the Mayor of Houston, Lee Brown. They spoke about the resolution as Mandelbaum heard that he was a member of the Committee. Brown said he would second the motion, which Peterson would make, putting it on the agenda. Brown had spent years in New York City as Police Commissioner before being called to join the Cabinet of President Bill Clinton as head of the D.E.A. Brown became instrumental in helping Mandelbaum launch the Rock and Wrap It Up! Mayors Initiative. He co-wrote a letter of introduction to the cities which would be contacted to offer to teach Rock and Wrap It Up! tactics and strategies.
On Saturday morning at the meeting of the Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee, Glickman followed by Mandelbaum presented Rock and Wrap It Up! tactics and strategies to the member Mayors. The A.P.E.S. Committee is the largest committee of the USCM and the discussion on the presentation was lively and supportive. After discussion they voted and approved the resolution to be presented for a full membership approval vote at the meeting on Monday morning June 8th 2003. Glickman and Mandelbaum were elated. It was exactly 22 years since Mandelbaum's epiphany in Jerusalem and exactly 61 year since the murder of his grandparents and family at Auschwitz.
There was much work to be done to launch the Rock and Wrap It Up! Mayors Initiative. Mandelbaum contacted Mary Sohm in Dallas and his Volunteer Regional Director Cristy Ecton. Cristy became a Rock and Wrap It Up! volunteer in 1996 after reading the article in Rolling Stone Magazine She had been one of the organizations most valued volunteers. Ecton worked as a blood bank administrator. In 2000, she joined the Peace Corp. and served for two years in Czechoslovakia, returning to the United States to volunteer again in Dallas. While in Europe she helped arrange food pickups and recovered food from a U 2 concert in Vienna. She met the same tour manager upon her return to Dallas while picking up food backstage from another U 2 concert there. Cristy worked with Mary and by December 2003, Dallas became the first city in America to implement Rock and Wrap It Up! tactics. The Mayors Initiative received additional support in March 2005. Mayor Manuel Diaz, the current Chairman of the Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee of the USCM sent out the follow letter to all Mayors in the United States:

Dear Mayor:
In 2003, the U.S. Conference of Mayors through the Arts, Parks Entertainment and Sports Committee guided by the leadership of Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, endorsed the Rock and Wrap It Up! Program with a policy resolution in support of the program. This valuable program is geared to alleviating the hunger of those less fortunate members of our communities and serves their needs through safe, organized leftover food pick-up.

2004 was a year of innovation and successes for Rock and Wrap It Up. National support and partnerships with cities continue to grow. The program’s strategies to combat hunger have been adopted by arenas and concert management teams throughout the country. Central to these strategies is that event contracts for activities taking place on our cities' properties, including sports and entertainment activities, include language that stipulates that leftover food from these activities will go to feed the hungry. The Rock and Wrap It Up program is a template to feed hundreds of millions more in our cities and represents the beginning of our potential to feed all those who suffer the effects of hunger.

The program has received major news coverage in The New York Times, Lifestyles Magazine, Venues Today and work continues to expand the Wrap It Up program with the organization of food recovery efforts at sporting venues and stadiums. Already the program has been implemented by the Detroit Tigers as well as the Texas Rangers in Dallas. The program continues to expand in Major League Baseball and is currently working with the New York Yankees for implementation at Yankee stadium. The Miami Heat is working to implement the program for the first food donations of the National Basketball Association. The New York Football Giants will be the first team in the National Football League to implement the Sports Wrap! program of clubhouse food recovery.
As Chair of the Conference's Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee I encourage you to support the program by including the program’s suggested language in contracts related to appropriate public events and venues in your city. As we work for the inclusion of the template language in contracts for these activities as well as long-term leasing of arenas and other properties in our cities, we will significantly help alleviate the scourge of hunger in our cities that hold so much promise for our bountiful country.

Questions regarding the program and the rider can be directed to Syd Mandelbaum of Rock and Wrap It Up at (516) 295-0670 or via email at sydmandelbaum@worldnet.att.net

Sincerely,
Manny Diaz
Mayor of Miami
Chair, Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports Committee

2002 Rock and Wrap t Up! Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum Humanitarian Award Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne had donated, food, time and contributions to ensure the growth of the organization. Ozzy did the first TV interview by a Rock Star in 1995, Sharon was interviewed by the Boston Globe in 1996. Daughter Kelly Osbourne taped a Public Service Announcement with Sharon in 1998 through a grant by the Untied States Department of Agriculture. 

Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum, who's survived as teenagers, starvation through four years in Nazi Concentration Camps inspired founder Syd Mandelbaum to feed all who hunger 

Article in Pollstar with founding Rock and Wrap It Up! Tribute Dinner Honorary Co-Chairman, John Sykes, CEO of Infinity Broadcasting. 

Rock and Wrap It Up! 2002 Jay Magazine Award Winner, Chef Michael LoManaco has served on the Board of City Harvest to help feed New York's poor. 

2002 Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award winner, Syndicated Columnist Lis Smith with her guest, film producer Joel Schumacher sharing a moment. 

Darius Rucker, the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, has been an important supporter of Rock and Wrap It Up! He performed at Pier 60 in NYC at the 2002 Tribute Dinner to honor the Awardees 

Osbournes, Liz Smith and Michael LoManaco Help Rock and Wrap It Up! Grow

Rock and Wrap It Up! had an active program in most major cities. In August 2002, Mandelbaum received a call from a reporter with Detroit Hours magazine wanting an interview. Mandelbaum suggested that he write about the Regional Director for the Detroit area, Greg Fletcher. Greg moved from New York to Detroit three years earlier and was a program manager for WGBN Superstation, out of Chicago. The article came out in the November issue of Detroit Hours Magazine and a dozen people called or e-mailed to become volunteers to help Greg.
It was a few months since 9/11, but Rock and Wrap It Up! Board of Directors began planning for a second Tribute Dinner. A new award was now in place, the Jay Magazine Award. The awardees for 2002 would be Chef Michael LoManaco receiving the Jay Magazine Award, syndicated columnist Liz Smith receiving the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne receiving the Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum Humanitarian Award. The committee selected Pier Sixty as the location for the event. Friend of Rock and Wrap It Up! Darius Rucker, lead singer for Hootie and the Blowfish was the musical entertainment. MTV again took the lead in planning and designing the event. MTV VJ and newsman, Gideon Yago, would host the festivities.
Ozzy and Sharon were huge supporters of Rock and Wrap! They joined the organization in Europe while on tour in 1996 and started sending toiletries for distribution. In 1997, Ozzy was filmed for a program called Deco Drive in Miami discussing his work with Rock and Wrap It Up! In 1998, Sharon was interviewed in the Boston Globe about fighting hunger through Rock and Wrap It Up!. In 1999, Kelly and Sharon Osbourne were filmed for a video for distribution for schools, through a grant through the USDA. The month before the Tribute Dinner, the Osbournes informed Mandelbaum that they could not attend in person but would accept the award by video in Los Angeles. Sharon had privately started chemotherapy for colon cancer. The video which they made was shown at the Tribute Dinner. Liz Smith had written the first piece about Rock and Wrap It Up! in her column in 1995 which got a great response. She also supported hundreds of charities in her column, helping to raise awareness and funds. She was the recipient of the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award, given out by Abigail Emerson Gilhooley, daughter of the late Bill Emerson. Michael LoMonaco was the Head Chef at Windows on the World. He would have been killed on 9/11, but had to have an emergency repair of his glasses and was late getting to the breakfast event for the special event planners from the United Kingdom. He worked tirelessly for food recovery organizations including City Harvest and was a deserving recipient of the first Jay Magazine Award.
In 2003 Avril Lavigne, The Dead, Good Charlotte, managers signed their tours with Rock and Wrap It Up! Avril Lavigne and The Dead signed Certificates of Appreciation for Rock and Wrap It Up! in February of that year.

Jay Magazine, Director of Catering of Windows on the World and Advisory Board member of Rock and Wrap It Up! 

Tom Freston, CEO of Viacom , with Dan Glickman, current President of the Motion Picture academy of America with Syd Mandelbaum, CEO and Founder of Rock and Wrap It Up!. 

Dan Glickman receiving his award from Abigail Emerson Gilhooley, daughter of the late Bill Emerson. 

MTV President Judy McGrath with Rock and Wrap It Up! CEO and Humanitarian Award Winner Leslie Leventman with Anna Devers Smith 

MC of the evening MTV newsman Gideon Yago 

Diane Mandelbaum, Mark and Bruce Becker, founders of Max and Mina's Gourmet Ice Cream at the Tribute Dinner. They helped organize the Help Lick Hunger Event at the Grammercy Park Hotel in 2000. In 2002 they were selected in the 50 most eligible men by People Magazine. 

An unknown Alicia Keys performs at the First Rock and Wrap It Up! Tribute Dinner. Her CD is released three weeks later and wins 5 Grammys. 

In Tribute to Jay Magazine 

The First and last Tribute Dinner at the World Trade Center

Mandelbaum met Magazine a year earlier at a fund-raiser for Rock and Wrap It Up! held at the Grammercy Park Hotel. Max and Minas Gourmet Ice Cream supplied the food for the event which was aptly named Help Lick Hunger. Bruce Becker, co-owner of Max and Minas with his brother Mark, came by the Rock and Wrap It Up! booth at Jones Beach Theater two year earlier and became a huge supporter. There were silent auction items donated by many supporters of the organization. Magazine was invited by Sheila Matefy, an employee of Viacom working as an event planner and a member of the Board of Rock and Wrap It Up! Matefy wanted Magazine to get active in the organization and thought the fund-raiser was a great place to meet the volunteers. Jay was married to Susan and had two children Melissa and Andrew. Melissa was a basketball player at her middle school and a fan of the NY Liberty. Mandelbaum met one of its stars, Rebecca Lobo six years earlier at an MTV Video Music Awards after party at Bryant Park. He arrived to recover the food with a crew. Ms. Lobo gave Mandelbaum her contact information and offered to help the organization. When Mandelbaum launched the Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program in 1997, Lobo was one of the first sports stars to sign certificates of appreciation. When items for the fund-raiser were needed, Lobo arranged for a signed NY Liberty jersey to be donated to the event.
Magazine was high bidder and got the jersey for Melissa. He also became and integral member of the organization and offered to co-chair the first Tribute Dinner, which was held at Windows on the World.
The First Rock and Wrap It Up! Tribute Dinner was held on June 18th , 2001 at Windows in the World, on the 107th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Leslie Leventman, received the first Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum Humanitarian Award. Leslie , a Senior Vice President of Special Events at MTV Networks had joined the board of Rock and Wrap it Up! in 1996 and through her leadership, helped grow the mission of feeding all who hunger. Her devotion and professionalism helped feed millions. The first Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award was bestowed on Former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. The award is named after the late Congressman from Missouri, Bill Emerson. Through Emerson's vision, donors of food were covered from liability issues which had stopped billions of pounds of food from being recovered. Hundreds of millions of plates of food were now added to the tables of shelters and pantries through the passage of the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan act. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award, given out by Abigail Emerson Gilhooley, daughter of the late Bill Emerson.
Under the leadership of Dan Glickman, dozens of more programs were implemented to serve the needs of the indigent. Glickman also was an early proponent of the Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program and helped it grow.
MTV assisted in producing the Tribute Dinner. They suggested an unknown singer for the evening's entertainment. Alicia Keys performed for the over 400 in attendance. Her album was released three weeks later and 5 Grammys were garnered the following year. It was the most successful fund-raiser for Rock and Wrap It Up! to date and the organization was able to dramatically grow. It was also the last time most of the attendees visited the Twin Towers, provoking bittersweet memories of the evening. Jay Magazine did an amazing job making the dinner both informative and entertaining.
On September 11th 2001, Mandelbaum checked his bags at LAX at 5:30 am for a 7a.m. flight back to New York's Kennedy Airport. As he waited at the American Airlines counter after going through security, the announcement came that the flight was being delayed. Then, a cacophony of cell phones rang. Syd's wife called to say that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. That, Mandelbaum surmised was why the announcement came about the flight being delayed. Mandlebaum waited at the boarding area. Diane called back 15 minutes later to say that a second plane hit the second building. Within ten minutes Mandelbaum made a decision to leave the airport. He called Avis to see if he could get a car. He had just turned one in an hour earlier. He then called the hotel he just left to see if there were rooms available. They said there were. At about 6:45 am, an announcement came on to evacuate the airport. The only thing Mandelbaum had left to do was locate his bags. Many people just left without their belongings. Mandelbaum asked if any of the bags were coming off any carousels and he was directed to one. His bag was on a top of a pile of bags which were left unclaimed. Most of the baggage handlers had already left the terminal and the airport. It was just luck that his bag was visible and reachable by climbing the hill of baggage. Mandelbaum got a rental shuttle and his car was waiting for him. By then the news was reporting that a plane hit the Pentagon and another crashed in western Pennsylvania. The evacuation of LAX was on the way and Mandelbaum wanted to get as far a way as possible. He got on the freeway and drove to Amy Reiley's house after calling her. She would not let him go to the hotel yet. He stayed there and watch the drama unfold as he reached her home about 8:30 am.
Both buildings collapsed. Everyone was worried about Mandelbaum and phone service was swamped. Mandelbaum finally got through to his family and friends and assured them that he was fine. He immediately started to worry about Jay Magazine.
It took from Tuesday till Friday night for Mandelbaum to get a flight back to New York. He arrived on the first flight he could book; it was a flight of United Airline Pilots being flown to Kennedy from Los Angeles so that they could begin flying planes out of Kennedy. Mandelbaum arrived at 5:30 a.m. He and Diane cried.
While Mandelbaum was grounded in LA, Rock and Wrap It Up! board member Steve Bernstein was stranded in Mexico City. Bernstein and Mandelbaum spoke during the week. He had not heard from his older brother, Bobby, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. Bernstein was part of the younger pair of Bernstein twin brothers. He was sure his brother was dead. Bernstein finally got a flight to Dallas on Thursday and decided to drive back to New York. He arrived home Saturday.
To begin to have closure for the Magazine family, a memorial service was held at the Stephen Wise Synagogue on West 68th Street, New York off Central Park West. Mandelbaum was one of the speakers to eulogize Jay Magazine. Mandelbaum remembers the eeriness of not having a casket but to have one oil painting of Jay on an easel staring out with a wonderful grin to the thousand's who came to pay their respects. The painting was done four months earlier for Melissa's Bat Mitzvah. Mandelbaum decided to read a dozen of Jay's e-mails to him which described parts of his life which gave him joy, his wife, his children, friendships, working for Rock and Wrap It Up! It was one of the most difficult times for all who attended. There would be some closure six months, later when a casket was laid to rest in the ground, after DNA testing was successful.
In 2002 Creed, CSN&Y, Bob Dylan, Linkin Park, The Who, Usher, Brooks and Dunn, Paul McCartney, The Eagles, Phil Lesh, Korn, John Mellencamp and Alicia Keys managers signed up their tours to fight hunger. Usher signed Certificates of Appreciation for the Rock and Wrap it Up! School Program. Mandelbaum attended five winter regional conclaves with Pi Lambda Phi to get to all chapters to participate in College Wrap!, the university based food recovery effort. The cities were Miami, Ft, Wayne, Greensboro, Albany and Philadelphia. The College Wrap! Program was also growing through graduates of high school College Wrap Programs. In place were programs at University of VA, Biola College of Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania and Duke. Hewlett Woodmere School District Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program had a program in place since 1997. in 1999, one of its student volunteers, Alan Schoenfeld, submitted the project to apply for a Coca Cola Scholarship from its foundation and won $25,000. He went to Yale University.

Los Angeles Volunteers meet after work at Wm. Fox Theater at Fox Studios on September 10th 2001. This meeting and lecture saved Mandelbaum's life. 

Cal. Berkeley Pi Lambda Phi Chapter and friends receiving a powerpoint presentation on the College Wrap Program on September 8th 2001 

Pi Lambda Phi International Fraternity Selects Rock and Wrap It Up! as their partner on 47 college campuses throughout the US and Canada 

College Wrap! Finds A New Audience and Saves A Life

In September, 2000, Mandelbaum received an e-mail from one of his summer volunteers. Tal Hirshberg was a freshman at Duke University and was active in the Lawrence H.S. Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program. He asked Mandelbaum if he could work to start a program in college. Mandelbaum reviewed scheduling and identifying shelters near the Duke campus. He also gave Hirshberg tips on how to approach the food purveyors for the school, which was Aramark. Within 2 weeks, the first College Wrap! Program was born. Food was picked up twice a week and Hirshberg recruited 4 others to help. That program was the spark for colleges to get on the band wagon.
Mandelbaum offered college students letter of reference for graduate school and employment. All graduate schools became much more competitive after the economy took a nosedive after 9/11/01. These letters became even more important to the admissions offices of medical, dental, law and graduate degreed programs. In 2001, the bands Weezer, Backstreet Boys, Eric Clapton, Madonna managers signed their tours with Rock and Wrap It Up! to help fight hunger.
Jeff Firestone read about Rock and Wrap It Up! in Rolling Stone Magazine in 1996 and contacted Mandelbaum about working Miami. Firestone owned a silk-screen printing company and immediately offered to print Rock and Wrap It Up! t-shirts at no cost. Mandelbaum required his volunteers to wear the shirts when picking up food and carry a laminated, numbered backstage passes. Firestone was delivering food from the Miami Arena to a shelter in downtown Miami. One of the directors of the program was Ezra Krieg. Firestone started delivering food from backstage in 1996. When the Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program started in 1997, he approached and worked closely with Miami- Dade county Department of Education which began pressing their schools to donate food. In 2000, Mandelbaum received a phone from Ezra Krieg. Krieg was the Alumni Philanthropy Chairman of Pi Lambda Phi, an international Fraternity with over 40 Chapters in the United States and Canada. The Board of Directors of the Fraternity wanted to increase community services and felt that they wanted to partner with an organization to work with their chapters. Rock and Wrap It Up! along with 30 other organizations was asked to submit applications to compete for the honor and the potential expansion of their own programs through exposure. In April 2001, Mandelbaum received a call from Krieg informing him that Rock and Wrap It Up! was selected as a finalist for the community service partnership with Pi Lambda Phi. The Fraternity has an illustrious history. It was founded in 1895 at Yale University as the first Fraternity to include non- Protestants. Over the years its alumni would include, baseball great Sandy Koufax, Gold Medal Olympic Decathlon winner Rafer Johnson, ABA and NBA great Artis Gilmore, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector, Baseball Commissioner Allan H. “Bud” Selig and the list goes on.
The only stipulation was that Rock and Wrap It Up! programs would be showcased at the Annual Meeting in Montreal Canada in July 2001 and be voted on by the representatives of the chapters in attendance. Mandelbaum arranged to do the presentation. Sheila Matefy, one of the Rock and Wrap It Up! board members volunteered to fly to Montreal to help with the presentation. Mark Fleming, the Montreal regional director before moving to New York, offered to turn a family visit to Montreal into a way to assist Mandelbaum in meeting the Chapter representatives. Fleming heard about Rock and Wrap It Up! through the Rolling Stone article.
Three other dynamic national programs were selected to present the work to the chapters; World Hunger Year, Share our Strength and National Coalition to fight Hunger and Homelessness. Rock and Wrap It Up! was going against great competition, anyone of which would have been a great partner with Pi Lambda Phi.
The Community Service Alumni Liaison for Pi Lambda Phi, Vince Marbury and Executive Director Alan Wunish had been to a Rock and Wrap It Up! Tribute Dinner in June 2001. They saw the organization first hand, how it operated, the support it had from strategic partners like MTV and Relix Magazine. The Tribute Dinner was held at Windows on the World, on the 107th Floor of the World Trade Center. MTV VJ and newsman Gideon Yago hosted the festivities. MTV Vice President Leslie Leventman was presented with the first Lena and Joseph Mandelbaum Humanitarian Award. Dan Glickman received the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Award. The entertainment for the evening was supplied by MTV, an unknown singer who they were showcasing over the summer named Alicia Keyes. The event was also highlighted by a video-produced by MTV about the organization. Its effect on the attendees was amazing. Its effect on the Pi Lambda Phi attendees, assured that quietly they would push for Rock and Wrap It Up! to partner with them. Little did anyone surmise the tragedy which would strike The World Trade Centers and Windows on the World less than three months later.
The decision was made by the chapters and unanimously Rock and Wrap It Up! was selected to partner with the fraternity. The Colleges would be encouraged to form College Wrap Programs. The brothers would also be recruited to do food recovery at concerts and arenas where Rock and Wrap It Up! did not have established volunteers. Mandelbaum traveled around the country with his staff and made presentations to the Chapters during their semi-annual conclaves. Mandelbaum’s first stop was the Pi Lambda Phi chapter at the University of California in Berkeley, Ca.
Mandelbaum had arranged to travel with his daughter Emily when she went back to college. She was entering her senior year at Stanford and had come back east for a short vacation. Mandelbaum realized that he could do a presentation to the Pi Lam chapter at Berkeley and arranged to get there on September 8th 2001. While on the west coast, Mandelbaum decided to fly down to Los Angeles on Sunday, September 9th to do a presentation to the Los Angeles Rock and Wrap It Up! volunteers and their Volunteer Regional Director Amy Reilly. Amy also set up a meeting at 2:00 pm on Monday, September 10th with Larry Vallon, Vice President of the House of Blues organization to discuss food recovery at their arenas throughout the United States and especially in California. A meeting was also set up that evening at Fox Studio’s, for Amy to use for their volunteers to show the video-tape MTV had produced for the Tribute Dinner and to hopefully get more volunteers. Both meetings, with House of Blues and the LA Volunteers went extraordinarily well.
The Director of Catering of Windows on the World, Jay Magazine,told Mandelbaum that he was going to a Special Event planners breakfast for event planners from England. Mandelbaum knew he would be away on the west coast but would have loved to have the opportunity to meet these people. Mandelbaum left on August 29 and was scheduled to return on September 11, 2001. Had Pi Lambda Phi not chosen Rock and Wrap It Up! to be their partner, Mandelbaum would have left for LA on Friday, finished his presentation and flew home. He would have attended the breakfast Jay had spoken about.
That breakfast, attended by Jay Magazine who normally never went into work before 11:00 am started at 8:00 am. The first plane crashed into the north Tower of the World Trade Center at 8.53 a.m. All those attending the breakfast were killed.

After seeing CBS News segment, The American Dream, with Dan Rather, World Wresting Entertainment produces a Public Service Announcement featuring The Rock. This PSA is shown nationally on MTV and brings thousands of student volunteers to help fight hunger through The Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program. 

Mandelbaum on CBS The American Dream March 1 2000 with Dan Rather. 50 million Americans hear about Rock and Wrap It Up! feeding the hungry 

Stone Cold Steve Austin signed Certificates of Appreciation for the Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program 

From Dan Rather to The Rock

Media attention was something that Mandelbaum never went out of his way to find; it seemed to find him. In the summer of 1999, Mandelbaum received a phone call from Karen Daniels. She introduced herself as an Associate Producer of a TV show for a production company filming a special to be shown on FoodTV. Mandelbaum was intrigued by the phone call. He wanted to know how Daniels found him and called. Daniels lived in Knoxville, TN and was doing research for a special about what Rock Stars ate backstage when they traveled and who cooks for them. Daniels and the Producer, Jim Zarchin was doing background information with a number of stars at the Riverbend, the amphitheater outside Cincinnati, OH. They had already interviewed Sarah McLachlan and her chef. Opening up for Sarah was Hootie and the Blowfish. Their lead singer, Darius Rucker, had met Syd Mandelbaum the year before at Jones Beach Theater. Rucker told Daniels that no program on Rock Star food and backstage catering would be complete without a story on the amazing work of Rock and Wrap It Up!
Karen Daniels came to New York and interviewed, Mandelbaum, the volunteers at the Claddagh INN, the staff at Jones Beach Theater and the volunteers who donated their time to recover and deliver the food. Daniels wanted a Rock act to open the program. Mandelbaum contacted R.E.M. in Georgia and requested their cooperation. They agreed, and the program was shot and edited. They also put a link fpr motivated viewers to get in touch with Mandelbaum via the internet or phone. The program aired on FoodTV in January 2000. It was well-received but the section on Rock and Wrap It Up! was special. Karen Daniels had captured Syd Mandelbaum’s story of the genesis of the organization with incredible clarity and added poignancy by focusing on the relationship Mandelbaum had with his father, his parents holocaust experience and the epiphany which launched the need to change the world. It brought hundreds of e-mails which translated into more volunteers for Rock and Wrap It Up! and an important phone call from CBS News. An Associate Producer had seen the program and pitched it to Dan Rather. She called to ask Mandelbaum if he would accept the honor of being highlighted on the American Dream series that Dan Rather produced weekly. Mandelbaum was taken aback and agreed to accept. He realized that after six years of going backstage, the hundreds of volunteers now working with Rock and Wrap It Up! to feed the hungry needed to be recognized. This national exposure would help the continual lubrication of the backstage doors to the auditoriums, arena and stadiums across America for his volunteers. It could also add many more volunteers wanting to change their world by fighting hunger through Rock and Wrap It Up! The segment aired in March 2000 and was an immediate success. It stayed on the CBS website for over two years. The piece helped volunteers all over the country and reinforced how caterers and security people had pitched in to make an enormous difference. CBS Nightly News, with an audience of over 50 million viewers gave Rock and Wrap It Up! national exposure.
One of the people who saw the segment on CBS Nightly News was Andrea Denar of the World Wrestling Federation, (WWF). It soon became know as the WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment. After viewing the piece by Dan Rather, Denar knew that there must be a way for wrestling to help support the work of Rock and Wrap It Up! The next morning she found Mandelbaum’s phone number and called. She said that it might be possible to pickup food from WWE events but was there anything else that they could offer? Mandelbaum asked if the top wrestlers could sign certificates of appreciation to help honor students. Mandelbaum also questioned the possibility of any wrestlers to be video-taped for a public service announcement to help Rock and Wrap It Up! expand its School Program? She said she would get back to him.
The next week Denar called. Two of the hottest properties of the WWE, The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin had agreed to sign 100 certificates each for the School Program. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) also agreed to tape a PSA if Rock and Wrap It Up! would supply the script. Mandelbaum agreed. Mandelbaum contacted one of the local Fire Marshals in the neighborhood and worked for the school district. Fire Marshall Brian Flax was also a huge wrestling fan and a bigger fan of The Rock. He agreed to help write the script in “Rock” language. Mandelbaum supplied the script and the PSA was shot in 15 second and 30 second format. The raw footage was given to Mandelbaum who arranged for one of his friends Ron Cesark and his assistant John Fletcher of Rivet Productions, to produce the PSA. It was a very successful PSA and is still shown on stations across the country.
Researching band tours was initially a challenge to Rock and Wrap It Up! In 1995, Mandelbaum wrote Pollstar in Fresno, CA about the work of the organization and Editor-in-Chief, Gary Bongiovanni, and Sales and Subscription Manager, Jeff Stone, came to give incredible support to the organization. Each year, Rock and Wrap It Up! was offered a ½ page ad to advertise to the band management or thank current bands for participating. Once a year, Stone would send a book with the private numbers to get to any band manager in the world. He also sent a current book of each venue and management contacts in every country in the world.
In 2000, blink 182, Jonny Lang, Smash Mouth, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera band managers joined Rock and Wrap It Up! Mark from blink 182, Smash Mouth and Britney Spears each signed Certificates of Appreciation for students who fought hunger through Rock and Wrap It Up! by starting food recovery programs in their schools. The School Program was beginning its third year and Mandelbaum was asked to conduct a workshop on food recovery efforts at the 2000 National School Boards Annual meeting in Orlando, FL. Fritz Edelstein represented the US Department of Education and Joel Berg represented the US Department of Agriculture. Newly appointed Executive Director Kathy Traystman presented the Rock and Wrap It Up! School Program. The workshop was a success, with over 50 school districts in attendance from across the nation.