Ten chefs will square off with Sephardic and Jewish dishes at the 10th annual Eat Well, Do Justice! fundraiser on Monday, September 14, in the Washington, DC area, with this year's contest carrying the theme Spice It Up. The event raises money for Tzedek DC, a nonprofit that provides free legal help and financial counseling to residents with low and moderate incomes.
The fundraiser has grown into a local staple since its earliest days. As reported by DC News Now, this year's competition features 10 chefs cooking in front of attendees to support Tzedek DC's mission. According to Tzedek DC, the event was created in 2017 by board member Courtney Weiner, who drew inspiration for the chef competition format from a kugel cooking contest at her grandmother's synagogue, a detail that helps explain the culinary-contest format behind what has become the organization's flagship fundraiser.
Tzedek DC dates back to 2017, when Ariel Levinson-Waldman founded it as a public interest center at the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. The organization is named Tzedek DC. Its community education programming is offered in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, and Amharic, per the same DC News Now report.
Legal Aid Meets Policy Advocacy
Beyond individual casework, Tzedek DC has spent roughly five years pushing for systemic policy changes, including advocacy for public school curriculum updates, according to DC News Now's report. That advocacy responds to a gap that opened two decades ago: schools stopped teaching financial tools back in 2006, the outlet notes. That gap closed recently, when the District adopted personal financial literacy standards in March 2024 for implementation in the 2024-25 school year.
The organization's policy wins have piled up in recent months. In June 2026, the DC Council unanimously approved the Medical Debt Mitigation Amendment Act of 2025, a reform Tzedek DC supported that bars healthcare facilities from using wage garnishment, home liens, or credit bureau reporting to collect medical debt, as reported by The Washington Informer. The same month, the DC Council passed the Enhancing Consumer Protection Procedures Amendment Act of 2025, modernizing the District's primary consumer protection law with Tzedek DC's participation to hold behind-the-scenes merchants accountable and outlaw additional abusive practices, according to Tzedek DC.
A Debt Crisis Concentrated in Black Neighborhoods
The stakes behind that legislative push are laid out in a report from Tzedek DC, which noted that at least one in 10 adults struggle with unpaid medical bills. The report also described disproportionate effects on Black residents. That crisis has already seen one major intervention: in August 2024, the District government partnered with Tzedek DC and the national nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to invest municipal funds into purchasing and abolishing over $42 million in medical debt for more than 62,000 DC residents, as Hoodline previously reported.
The Washington Informer reports that Tzedek DC provides free civil legal assistance and financial counseling to low- and moderate-income DC households, with approximately 90% of its clients being Black residents, most of whom live in Wards 7 and 8. The organization has also taken its advocacy into federal court, successfully challenging DC's Clean Hands driver's license suspension law and securing a December 2022 preliminary injunction that stopped the city from withholding license renewals from residents who owe unpaid traffic or administrative fines as low as $101, according to the DC Bar.
Expanding Access to Justice Beyond the Courtroom
Tzedek DC's leadership has also backed broader reforms to close the District's civil legal representation gap. In February 2026, the DC Court of Appeals authorized trained non-lawyer Community Justice Workers to deliver limited civil legal help under attorney supervision, a reform endorsed by Tzedek DC founder Ariel Levinson-Waldman. Monday's fundraiser, and the chefs stirring pots of Sephardic and Jewish dishes for the cause, are part of the effort to support Tzedek DC.
