Food Bank Marches at 2023 NYC Pride Parade

Food Bank For New York City joined the festivities at Brooklyn Pride this June to celebrate our LGBTQ+ neighbors, clients, and supporters. And it was a huge success! Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn was packed for Pride. Our Food Bank booth was the place to be. Revelers stopped by to learn more about our work and mission, sign up to volunteer, and even inquire about SNAP eligibility. The best part? If they qualified, they could get enrolled in SNAP benefits right then and there! Food Bank's Pride booth was the place to be! But that's not all – our amazing partners at Farmacy Beauty hooked us up with some seriously cool clean beauty essentials: Green Defense sunscreen, Mango Smoothie lip balm, and Deep Sweep Toner so folks could enjoy some self-care during this special month. Farmacy Products included lip balm, toner, and sunscreen. SPF was essential on this sunny June day. SWAG included fans, stickers, temporary tattoos, Farmacy beauty products, sunglasses, and pens. Throughout the day, hundreds of New Yorkers stopped by our tent, many of whom were already part of the Food Bank family – donors, volunteers, supporters, and clients. It warmed our hearts to connect with so many amazing folks! We are proud to support New York's LGBTQIA+ community. We believe FOOD UNITES at Food Bank For New York City. One particularly memorable woman named Colleen joyfully stepped up to our table in a colorful Bi-pride shirt and shared "A few years ago when I lost my job, Food Bank saved my ass. Where can I donate?" We laughed, teared up, and shook hands before she dove back into the crush of folks grooving down 5th Ave. We want to thank all our visitors who stopped by to learn more about our mission and sign up to volunteer with us. We also want to give a huge shoutout to the nearly 200 people who signed up to volunteer and the hundreds more who took the time to learn about our mission. You all rock! We thank everyone who signed up to volunteer with us! Pride is a time to celebrate our LGBTQ+ neighbors, and we are so proud of the partnerships we've fostered to truly support our fellow New Yorkers in need. But we also know that there's still work to be done. Did you know that 1 in 5 LGBTQ+ New York residents struggle with food insecurity? That's a reality we're working hard to change. Find out more about our approach here and check out some of the LGBTQ-serving organizations to whom we provide food and other essential resources: At Food Bank, we believe that FOOD UNITES us all and we welcome you to join us in our mission to empower every New Yorker to achieve food security for good. See the action here: The Food Bank booth was the place to be! FOOD UNITES New Yorkers. Happy Pride, Y’all! To learn more visit foodbanknyc.org.

Chef Max Hardy has been a friend of Food Bank's for over seven years. He's been a volunteer, a supporter, a member of the Food Bank Culinary Council, and even served as an interim Director in our Community Kitchen in Harlem while it was undergoing renovations. To say that he's made an indelible mark on our mission to fight food insecurity across New York City would be quite the understatement. To learn more about the talented chef, we chatted with him about his approach to cooking and service as well as what Black History Month means to him. Check out the conversation below! What, for you, is the magic of food? For me, the magic is all about seeing people smile while they enjoy their food. Simple acts like cooking and baking bread bring people together in such a special way. My mom is Bahamian, and I have so many fun memories of us cooking together. Do you have a favorite meal memory? I definitely have a favorite career memory as a chef! I was interviewing for a Kosher catering company and they asked me to do a cooking demo for 3 Rabbis at a synagogue. They gave me a bunch of ingredients and asked me to make Matzah Ball Soup, but I had never made Matzah Ball Soup before. So, I get the Matzah meal and started to make the balls the way I would make a hushpuppy, which is totally the wrong way! I’m making my soup broth and folding my egg whites into the Matzah meal, and everything looks great when I end up serving the dish to the Rabbis. Afterward, they came into the kitchen and asked to see how I made the Matzah Balls because they knew they were wrong, but they still tasted delicious. One of the Rabbis took a Matzah Ball in his hand and threw it against the wall and it splattered and he said anytime it does that, it’s a good Matzah Ball! I had no clue what I was getting myself into, but I made it work, and it's still one of my fondest chef memories ever. How can folks use food to do good? This question makes me think of Food Bank's Community Kitchen & Food Pantry in Harlem. Everyone in the neighborhood knows everyone there. One of the things we try to do at Food Bank is challenge the stigma about what it’s like going to a soup kitchen. It should feel like going to the grocery store, like going to any other place in the community. I said it earlier, but there really is something powerful about using food to bring people together. What does Black History Month mean to you? I keep saying community, but that’s what it is, right? For Black History Month, seeing the struggles that African Americans have been through and then to be an African American chef and be able to show how we have influenced food culture is important to me. I think of this month like any other month, it’s always important to show the work of African American chefs in the food and beverage industry. Lastly... if your bodega named a sandwich after you, what would it be called and what would it be? “The Busy Boss” and it would have crispy chicken tenders, spicy Caribbean slaw, and a guava spicy BBQ sauce on a toasted brioche bun. For more stories from chefs on the ground, make sure to check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

This Pride month, we here at Food Bank For New York City are turning a critical eye to the pervasive issues of poverty and food insecurity in the LGBTQ+ community. Though Pride is certainly a time for celebration, it’s also a time for acknowledging the work still needed to be done to achieve true equity for the LGBTQ+ community. Part of that work necessitates addressing the immense hunger needs of LGBTQ+ individuals. According to a 2020 report from the Williams Institute, 27% of LGBTQ+ folks across the United States are currently facing food insecurity. Even before the pandemic, one in five LGBTQ+ individuals were already living in poverty, a rate 76% higher than the national average. It’s no wonder then that LGBTQ+ people also participate in social safety net programs like SNAP (formerly food stamps) at much higher rates than their straight counterparts. Though many states (including New York) have implemented widespread non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ folks, the reality is that many non-straight people still experience rampant discrimination in the realms of housing, employment, education, and healthcare. Therefore, when we talk about food insecurity in the LGBTQ+ community, we must recognize how it intersects with other challenges that make it difficult for non-straight people to secure the resources they need to survive. We must also acknowledge that hunger and poverty disproportionately impact those most marginalized within the LGBTQ+ community itself, namely trans people, non-binary individuals, seniors, people of color, and those living with HIV. Even in communities with strong non-discrimination protections, these vulnerable groups still face higher rates of poverty than the general public, due in large part to certain stigmas they may face in society. SAGE (an NYC-based organization dedicated to serving the needs of older LGBTQ+ adults and a Food Bank member agency) recently released a study that illuminated these disparities, finding that one-third of LGBTQ+ seniors in New York City are living at or below 200% of the federal poverty line. The report also found that 52% of respondents were being forced to deny or hide their identities from their healthcare providers and that 67% of LGBTQ+ seniors in New York City feared neglect from long-term care specialists. To support our LGBTQ+ elders, we partner with SAGE to provide food for its meal program. In addition to our work with SAGE, we’re proud to partner with a wide range of other community-based organizations that tailor their programming to serve the unique needs of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers. One of these groups is GMHC, an organization founded in the early 1980s to uplift New Yorkers living with HIV. In addition to offering mental health services, housing assistance, and immigration support to its clients, GMHC has also long provided a safe space for folks living with HIV to gather and share food. As GMHC’s Director of Nutrition & Meals Josie Thiele explained to me, the GMHC Meals Program was a vital lifeline for New Yorkers living with HIV in the 1980s and 90s. At that time, folks who showed visible signs of the virus were often barred from eating in public spaces, so GMHC became one of the few spots where they could safely come together. The program provided nutritious free food, yes, but it also provided a place in which those living with HIV could simply exist without shame, stigma, or judgment. And though the Meals Program has evolved over time, Thiele says this shame-free approach to service is what has allowed the organization to better support and understand its diverse array of clients, many of whom identify along the LGBTQ+ spectrum. “When folks can feel comfortable expressing who they are, it makes it easier for them to access the services they need,” Thiele said. “Our clients know that when they walk through our doors, there’s no judgment. We work to make it a safe space for everyone. As staff, we always introduce ourselves with our pronouns so folks know they can express that as well. In general, we want to make people feel comfortable in a way that in many other places they might feel afraid or stigmatized.” By breaking through these stigmas, GMHC is able to establish trust with its clients, which allows it to engage folks with a wide range of services to meet their unique and varied needs. As Thiele told me, GMHC endeavors to serve its clients holistically by recognizing that food insecurity is hardly ever just about food. “For most of our clients, there’s a variety of things that are going to lead to food insecurity,” Thiele said. “So, we have food services, including our congregant meals, food pantry, and nutrition counseling with registered dieticians, but we also offer course development programs for clients looking to write a resume or learn new computer skills. We also have legal services to help folks navigate immigration and housing laws as well as mental health and substance abuse services.” “By focusing on all of these different things, we can help our clients achieve their goals and feel fully supported,” she continued. “Giving people food is great, but helping them to find stable housing or a stable job helps to minimize the food insecurity in general.” At the end of the day, the LGBTQ+ community is no monolith, and fighting back against hunger and poverty within it requires a nuanced, specific, and dynamic approach. It requires acknowledging that many people’s queer identities intersect with other identities that may further complicate their lived experiences, which means that a cisgender white gay man, for example, will likely have very different needs than those of an immigrant trans woman of color. Responding to these needs requires listening. It requires persistence. And it requires serving others without shaming them for being who they are. As Tyrone Hanley of the National Center for Lesbian Rights said in an interview with the Food Research & Action Center last year: “When people are already dealing with the vulnerability of being poor, and then on top of that adding worries about being discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, that can prevent people from receiving the services they desperately need.” To learn more about how Food Bank serves the LGBTQ+ community all year long, click this link.