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Dear
Friend,
Twenty
years ago, I found myself bothered by an election. As a college student in New
Orleans, I had David Duke’s gubernatorial run to thank for awakening my
community activism. Suddenly, there I was: up early every morning knocking on
doors in hopes of getting neighbors, fellow students and retirees to the polls.
My anxiety was high. My sense of responsibility was brand spanking new, and my
pitch held the exact amount of righteous indignation and fury that should be
present in an 18-year-old American holding a fresh voter registration card. On
my way to place my vote, I was nervous. What if he wins? What if we lose? What
if… (insert every fear imaginable and
unimaginable).
And
then it happened. I turned the corner and saw long lines of faces I knew. I saw
people who had opened doors to me and fellow students who begged me to leave
them alone. They were all there…ready to act…together. At the time I didn’t
realize that the moment was about more than an election. The big lesson for me
was that you can allow your fears to consume you and convince you of your
smallness – or you can remember that focused effort coupled with great support
can make anyone unstoppable. Every day, poverty throws a new curveball at New
Yorkers struggling to make ends meet. Every year, we brace ourselves for what
is to come, while confronting new challenges unknown to us the year before.
Because of the support and partnership we receive from New Yorkers, our
mission gets to confidently step to the plate knowing that not only will we get
a hit, but we may even get one over the
fence.
Sincerely,
Margarette Purvis
President & CEO
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Bridging the Green Gap
Limited income often removes fruit and
vegetables from a family’s table. The same is true for food pantries in our
city’s poorest neighborhoods. The reason? These charities are often lacking the
proper storage and capacity to hold and distribute fresh food safely. This has
been a truth that hunger relief efforts have worked around for decades… until
now. Borrowing from expertise of retail inventory management, we’ve recently
introduced Green Sidewalks, a food distribution model shifting the focus
from a neighborhood’s limitations towards what may be found in abundance:
people in need along our city’s sidewalks. With the help of our Green Sidewalk sponsors, our trucks now bring fresh food just
in time for direct handoff to families in need – resulting in an 82%
increase in produce to those communities over the same period last year.
Focus, leverage, logistics and innovative partnerships meeting on a NYC
street is how we will SERVE MORE… together.
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Old Teammates, New
Positions
Our mission is not new to Scott Feldman and New
York Mets superstar Curtis Granderson. Feldman is a leader for our annual
Can Do Awards, and Granderson has been the sole sponsor of our citywide youth
summer internship program. Over the last few months, each has chosen to
take a new role and leverage their networks to help us serve more during the
holidays. Granderson’s Grand Giving campaign partnered with FreshDirect to
make giving to the 1.5 million NYers relying on Food Bank easy. Shoppers
simply add a donation to their virtual basket and make a REAL DIFFERENCE. Every
donation also provides a chance to win a ticket to his celebrity-studded “Night
of Grand Giving.” At the same time, Feldman dedicated an additional 26.2
miles of sweat equity to our mission. Through his "What the Feldman" fundraiser, he’s now
responsible for adding more than 90,000 additional meals to our work.
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A Focused Council
In a time of great cynicism directed at elected
leaders, NYers have a reason for great pride in the leaders of our City
Council. They recently decided to use discretionary resources to tackle hunger
in communities across the city. Their decision to allocate new
support to charities facing great need with limited capacity is the mark of
new and dynamic leadership. The pressure this support will alleviate will be
felt on all five boroughs by some of our city’s neediest charities serving our
city’s neediest citizens. A very special thank you to Speaker Melissa
Mark-Viverito – a Food Bank For New York City Freedom from Want Award
honoree – and the entire City Council for their engaged leadership to close our
city’s meal gap.
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For NYers, by NYers
The easiest thing to do when you have a complaint is
to build a monument of “ain’t it awful”s. But that’s not how the Food Bank
family works. Some of my favorite advisors felt that we could take our holiday cards to the next level by adding more of a NYC
lens… so they stepped in and added it. Thanks to the leadership of Lois
Stainman and board member Gloria Pitagorsky, this year’s holiday cards celebrate the beauty of our city along with
the necessity of our mission. We’re offering two versions which may be
customized and printed with vellum inserts or sent electronically. Your loved
ones will feel great knowing that you're thinking of them and making a
gift to those in need on their behalf.
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