When she took ill the previous week, my wife and I were surprised that while the interfaith chapel in the large non-East Coast city hospital she was in included prayer mats and Korans and Christian Bibles - it provided nothing for Jews (besides an electric menorah.) The chapel did not include any Tehillim (Hebrew Psalms), Siddurim (Jewish prayer books,) or chumashim (Hebrew Pentateuchs).
New York area hospitals generally do provide all of these materials, either in the chapel or in special "Bikur Cholim" rooms and lockers.
In my mother in law's memory, we would like to buy these books and distribute them to any hospital that desires them throughout North America for the benefit of their Jewish patients. We are calling the project Tzivia's TiSCH.
My mother in law's Hebrew name was Tzivia. "Tisch" is an acronym for Tehillim, Siddurim and CHumashim. It is also Yiddish for "table" or "celebration."
In phase 1 of the project, I hope to use this platform to both fundraise and to find hospitals that want to participate. If things go well I can make it more formal.
I estimate that the cost is about $200 per hospital chapel for two sets of each three volumes, so phase 1 will be able to offer these volumes to about 25 hospitals.
I plan to work with major Jewish publication companies to find the best discounts on these books so we can distribute them to more hospitals.
Please contribute to Tzivia's TiSCH on its GoFundMe page here.
If you are associated with a hospital that needs these materials, please contact me.
And if you for some reason have lots of Hebrew/English Tehillim, siddurim, or chumashim to give away for this project, please contact me as well.
Thanks!