After 30 Years of Building Sukkahs, a Family Business is Giving Them Away

The Sukkah Project® marks three decades by launching The Sukkah Foundation—free sukkahs and holiday care packages for Jewish families who cannot afford them.

Thirty years ago, Steve and Judith Herman started building sukkahs for their local Jewish community in North Carolina — neighbors and friends who wanted to celebrate the holiday but had no good way to put a kosher sukkah in the backyard. Word spread the way it does in Jewish communities. Three decades later, The Sukkah Project® is still family-owned (now by Steve and Judith’s nephew, Abram Herman) and has helped thousands of families, schools, and synagogues across North America build their sukkahs. The family workshop has become one of the continent’s longest-running and most trusted sukkah makers.

The kits are designed around a simple idea: a sukkah should be sturdy enough to last for years, simple enough that a family can raise it together in an afternoon, and kosher without compromise. Customers who bought a sukkah as newlyweds now send photos of grandchildren decorating and celebrating in the same one.

This year, their 30th, the family decided the anniversary called for something more than a milestone. In June they launched The Sukkah Foundation (sukkahfoundation.org), a national charitable initiative with a single mission: to make sure no Jewish family has to sit out Sukkot for lack of a sukkah.

The most communal holiday — and the families who miss it

Sukkot is the most communal of Jewish holidays: a week of gathering in the sukkah, welcoming guests, and sharing meals under the open sky. The Torah calls it z’man simchateinu, the season of our rejoicing. But a quality sukkah isn’t free, and every year the Hermans heard from families for whom that expense was simply out of reach — parents who wanted nothing more than to build and decorate a sukkah with their children and could not justify the cost against groceries and rent.

“Sukkot is about shelter, hospitality, and joy — and it’s meant to be shared,” said Abram Herman, the Foundation’s founder and executive director. “Especially during these times when the Jewish community needs more connection, we want everyone to be able to build community through the mitzvot of Sukkot. A sukkah shouldn’t be a luxury. We started the Foundation so cost is never the reason a family, a classroom, or a congregation sits out during our most joyous holiday.”

How it works

Families apply through a brief, confidential application, and an independent committee reviews applications with dignity and privacy as guiding principles. Selected families receive a complete, high-quality sukkah, built to serve them for years, along with a holiday care package of prayer resources, decorations, and educational materials designed to help them build their own traditions — first-time celebrants included.

This fall, the Foundation’s first families across the country — in cities, small towns, and even places with no Jewish infrastructure at all — will raise their sukkahs for Sukkot 5787, which begins the evening of September 25. Many applications came through rabbis, Jewish educators, and social service professionals who know a family that could use the help; others came from families themselves who found the Foundation online. In all, nearly 90 families applied in the Foundation’s first season — demand that far outstrips what first-year funding can support without increased giving from the broader Jewish community, and a measure of how many families have been quietly sitting the holiday out. In the years ahead, the Foundation plans to extend the same support to the religious schools, synagogues, and community organizations where so much of Jewish life takes root. Applications for next year’s cohort will open in 2027; rabbis, educators, and social service professionals who work with families in need can sign up at sukkahfoundation.org to be notified.

A community effort

The Foundation is funded by the wider Jewish community — individual donors, donor-advised funds, and partner organizations who believe Sukkot should belong to everyone. Every sukkah delivered this fall is the work of donors who made it possible. The Sukkah Foundation is a fiscally sponsored project of UpStart, a national 501(c)(3) public charity that supports Jewish innovation, and contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. To learn more about the Foundation’s work, visit sukkahfoundation.org.

Planning your own sukkah this year?

The family business that started it all is still at work. The Sukkah Project ships its sukkah kits nationwide directly from the family workshop, in sizes ranging from a balcony sukkah for two to congregation-scale structures housing hundreds of celebrants (including several at prominent Atlanta-area congregations), along with decorations and accessories for the holiday. Kits are designed for straightforward, “klutz-proof” assembly — no tools required — and built with top-quality materials to last for years.

With Sukkot beginning the evening of September 25, Atlanta families planning their own Sukkot celebration should order early: browse the full line at sukkot.com, and your sukkah will arrive with time to spare for decorating with the kids before the first night.