A little more than a year ago, New York City’s top providers of emergency food came together to work together to better serve the more than 1.4 million New Yorkers who lack sufficient food each year. Since then, the New York City Food Assistance Collaborative has been hard at work to help the city’s food programs in their efforts to better serve their communities.
From a press release via the NYC Department of Social Services:
Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks and Human Resources Administrator Grace Bonilla meet with Annette Bernard, Executive Director of the Christian Cultural Center (CCC)’s Community Affairs Division, which includes the CCC Food Pantry in East New York, Brooklyn. Thanks to support from the New York City Food Collaborative, including more equipment, the CCC Food Pantry is operating 40% more hours and distributing 75,000 more pounds of food a year.
Volunteers at the Christian Cultural Center Food Pantry distribute food to hundreds of families every week, thanks to expanded hours. The New York City Food Assistance Collaborative, which brings together City Harvest, United Way of New York City, the New York City Human Resources Administration, and the New York State Department of Health Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program, is a unified effort to direct emergency food resources equitably and efficiently to residents in need. With support from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, and in partnership with the Mayor’s Office for Food Policy, the Collaborative is increasing capacity and food supply in the most underserved parts of the city.
Read more about our work with the NYC Food Assistance Collaborative in our case study.