Inside Food Bank's Community BBQ in Harlem

April is Global Volunteer Month, a time for us to celebrate the Food Bank volunteers who devote their time and energy to our mission of empowering every New Yorker to achieve food security for good. Each volunteer has played an indispensable role in serving our neighbors and building a stronger, healthier community for all of us. Our Food Bank volunteers are amazing! Click here to join our volunteer community. A member of our Food Bank Junior Board greets a client at our Community Kitchen & Food Pantry in Harlem. Reflecting on a Year of Volunteerism Over the past year, our volunteers have embarked on inspiring journeys, fearlessly taking on the challenges our community faces. The impact of their commitment can be felt across every borough of our amazing city. A Food Bank volunteer greets New Yorkers at a Mobile Pantry distribution. Whether it was packing boxes of nutritious meals for seniors at our Warehouse, distributing groceries to Harlemites from our Community Kitchen & Food Pantry, or packing personal hygiene kits at home, our volunteers have made a difference in the lives of food insecure New Yorkers. Because of their dedication, families have found hope in times of hardship, and individuals have felt the warmth of a caring community around them. Food Bank volunteers packing food at our Warehouse & Distribution Center in the Bronx. We’re excited to share the extraordinary milestones we have hit together: Since February 2023, 7,662 volunteers have served 23,502 hours, translating to $742,663 in value to Food Bank's mission. On March 25, we re-engaged volunteers in our Senior Lunch Service and Community Meal programs for the first time since March 2020. From Food Bank’s Community Pantry, volunteers helped serve 38,957 households. Volunteers at Food Bank’s Warehouse & Distribution Center packed 953,056 pounds of food, converting to 779,595 meals. Additionally, Food Bank’s Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) volunteers have processed more than 3,000 tax returns, helping to put over $5,720,000 in tax refunds back into the pockets of New Yorkers already this year. Food Bank volunteers celebrate the end of a packing shift at our Warehouse & Distribution Center in the Bronx. The Power of Volunteering and Encouragement for the Future Volunteering is the heart of our organization, and its power to bring about transformative change is undeniable. We invite each member of our Food Bank community to consider the profound impact they can make by joining us on this incredible journey. If you're ready to join us in empowering our neighbors to achieve food security for good, click here. There, you’ll learn more about our various volunteering opportunities and how YOU can become part of our volunteer family. A smiling volunteer at our Warehouse & Distribution Center in the Bronx. Thank you to all of our volunteers for your service, determination, and compassion. Together, we are transforming lives and making progress on a more hopeful, dignified, and equitable future for ALL New Yorkers. We are so thankful to volunteers who help power our mission every day. Click here to join us on the ground as a Food Bank volunteer!

Food Bank For New York City is proud to provide food and other essential items to community-based organizations that work tirelessly to meet the dynamic needs of women and families across NYC. One of these organizations is The HopeLine, which recently hit a major milestone of distributing 2 million diapers to families in the Bronx! The HopeLine has been a Food Bank Member since 1994 but has been serving the Bronx for much longer – nearly four decades! While originally established as a food pantry, HopeLine quickly expanded its services to go beyond food to provide English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, SNAP benefit navigation, tax filing assistance, and more. As HopeLine Executive Director Maria Cintron puts it, if families need food, they might need other services to thrive, too. Help women and girls secure the period products, hygiene essentials, and childcare resources they need to thrive! Maria works around the clock to serve community members like Jessica (above right) in the Bronx. In fact, it was in 2015 that Maria saw how the high cost of diapers was impacting New York families, with some forgoing food to afford them. For Maria, this was unacceptable, so she launched a free diaper program to ensure families with babies and young children had access to this costly essential. “When we first started out, we were so happy to receive a thousand diapers that we could give to our moms,” she told us. “Looking back, it’s insane to think how little that is! Today, the need is so great in New York City and there are so few programs that we are having to turn away people on a regular basis. It breaks my heart. But I’m not giving up on them!” The HopeLine celebrated this milestone with neighbors at its location in the Bronx. The HopeLine is one of the few remaining diaper programs in New York City, distributing 7,000-10,000 diapers per week. It’s a daunting task that requires not only thousands of donations, but many hours of staff time to ensure each parent receives the exact diaper size they need for their children, while also running a food pantry that distributes food three times a week to the community. The program recently hosted an event to give away diapers and Food Bank was able to provide donated baby wash and fresh produce to support this 2 million diaper milestone with our valued partner! To learn more about The HopeLine and the work they do to nourish their community, watch the video below: Food Bank For New York City is humbled to provide food and other resources to an extensive Member Network of over 800 food pantries, soup kitchens, and campus partners across the five boroughs. To support organizations like The HopeLine, visit www.foodbanknyc.org.

In this post, we’re going to cover all the things you can and can’t donate to the network of food pantries and soup kitchens that power our work at the Food Bank For New York City. While our donation dos and don’ts may differ from other hunger relief organizations, they should still provide you with a better understanding of what kinds of resources organizations like ours are generally looking for. But before we get into our full donation chart, we want to cover a few tips and tricks for optimizing your next donation. Consider Refrigeration While several organizations in our member network may be able to refrigerate things like produce, dairy, and meat, not all food pantries and soup kitchens have this same capacity, so always make sure to double check before you donate. If it’s unclear, stick with shelf-stable goods like canned food, flour, cooking oil, or rice. Skip the Expired Goods Yes, “best of” or “expiration” dates aren’t always accurate, but that doesn’t mean you should donate expired goods to hunger relief organizations. When thinking about what to give, consider whether or not you’d be comfortable serving the item to your family. If you wouldn’t eat something past its “sell-by” date, chances are you shouldn’t donate it. No Leftovers Please You might be the best chef in the entire world, but unfortunately, we can’t accept your home-cooked meals or food items. Without knowing how the items were prepared, we’re unable to control for things like allergies and dietary restrictions. The same thing is true for any baked goods or meals you might buy from a local grocer. Don’t Break the Seal Food pantries and soup kitchens in our member network are only able to accept unopened or unused food items. This means that you can’t donate a half-used box of spaghetti or bring us a Ziploc bag of items your family no longer needs. We appreciate the spirit of this gift, but want our clients to have the same experience that any of us have when shopping for and selecting the new food items they want to eat. Prioritize Nutrition To bring a little more care to your donation, think about the nutritional value of what you’re giving. When donating canned vegetables, for example, consider giving low-sodium veggies. And if you’re thinking about donating grains or pasta, we say prioritize things like brown rice and whole grain noodles. We want to serve our clients quality ingredients that not only taste good, but do good things for the body. Now that you’ve read through these tips, take a peek at our official donation chart below. We’ve organized items into things we’d like to “prioritize” and ones we’d like to “reduce.” To learn more about our approach to community nutrition, click this link.