Inside a Food Bank Just Say Yes Lesson
Food Bank For New York City recognizes that healthy eating isn't always easy in our city.To address this challenge, Food Bank offers Just Say Yes (JSY), a community...
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Food Insecurity |
ReadInside a Food Bank Just Say Yes Lesson
Food Bank For New York City recognizes that healthy eating isn't always easy in our city.To address this challenge, Food Bank offers Just Say Yes (JSY), a community...
Food Bank For New York City recognizes that healthy eating isn't always easy in our city. To address this challenge, Food Bank offers Just Say Yes (JSY), a community nutrition education program designed to help busy New Yorkers incorporate fruits, vegetables, and whole grains into their diets and feel more empowered to cook at home. As part of a comprehensive approach to addressing the health needs of New Yorkers, JSY serves all five boroughs through a robust program. Just Say Yes educators conduct nutrition education lessons across all five boroughs. The JSY team consists of two dedicated educators who travel throughout the city, hosting free nutrition education workshops in community centers, food pantries, and churches. The program partners with NYC Health and is funded by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), ensuring its accessibility to a wide range of New Yorkers. Materials attendees receive to further their understanding of nutrition and healthy eating. JSY's model focuses on teaching the "hows" of healthy eating while encouraging a deeper understanding of the "whys." It aims to reach New Yorkers who may not have otherwise had access to nutrition and culinary instruction. Let's take a closer look at a typical JSY workshop recently hosted by Michael, one of Food Bank's Community Nutritionists, at Metro World Child in Bushwick, Brooklyn... Michael began his instruction with a discussion. In a lively community center in a well-equipped dining room, Michael began his lesson by engaging the group in a discussion about their favorite produce. "I cook garlic with EVERYTHING," exclaimed Wendy, a participant. "I literally use it every day." Building on this enthusiasm, Michael explained how different colors of fruits and vegetables often contain different essential vitamins. He delved into the concept of phytochemicals, breaking down the word into "plant" and "nutrients," which is how nutritionists analyze health benefits. Michael also took care to extol the benefits of Wendy's favorite vegetable, noting that garlic is high in oxalates, which with the right amount of calcium, can lower risk for kidney stones. The hands-on portion of the workshop featured a chickpea salad recipe demonstration. Michael described the dish as a "colorful recipe," reinforcing the message of "eating the rainbow" for various health benefits. The ingredients were carefully selected to be affordable, with the salad costing roughly $1 per serving, making it accessible to very tight budgets. As he prepared the salad, Michael offered tips on technique, such as efficiently cutting an onion to minimize liquid release (which causes watery eyes). One participant even filmed the demonstration to try at home. A participant filmed Michael's onion cutting technique for at home use. Cutting onions in this way minimizes the release of liquids which can cause watery eyes. The workshop concluded with a tasting of the chickpea salad and a discussion of participants' thoughts and feedback. It was clear that attendees' voices were valued and their input was welcome. Wendy, an attendee, even spoke fondly of her children's experience with Food Bank's CookShop program during their public school education, a testament to Food Bank’s reach across age groups and communities in New York City. A batch of chickpea salad demonstrated in the lesson. A serving of this chickpea salad costs roughly $1, making it a great choice for New Yorkers on a tight food budget. Through programs like Just Say Yes, Food Bank For New York City is empowering New Yorkers to make healthier choices and fostering a deeper understanding of nutrition. By providing accessible, engaging, and hands-on education, Food Bank is helping to create a healthier, and more informed city, one workshop at a time. Food Bank's Just Say Yes Nutrition Education lessons are conducted year-round all over New York City. For more information on how you can support or learn more about Just Say Yes, click here. -
Nutrition and Health |
ReadNourishing Minds and Bodies: Inside Food Bank's CookShop Program
The sound of a trickling hydroponic tower mixes with the excited chatter of second graders as they gather in the well-equipped science lab at their Brooklyn public...
The sound of a trickling hydroponic tower mixes with the excited chatter of second graders as they gather in the well-equipped science lab at their Brooklyn public school. Food Bank For New York City has partnered with this school for nine years, supplying not only vegetables, but comprehensive nutrition lesson plans, teacher training, and guidance on healthy eating through our CookShop program. The school's CookShop educator, Ms. Elzoghby in the elementary school's well-equipped science lab. Launched over 30 years ago, CookShop is all about empowering teachers with the resources they need to educate their students about cooking, nutrition, and physical fitness. It aims to foster enthusiasm in children for fresh fruits, vegetables, and healthy whole foods. Each year, CookShop Classroom reaches over 13,000 New Yorkers through partnerships with 60 schools and 20 after-school programs. Let’s hop back into our Brooklyn classroom to see this dynamic program in action... Tasting notes students have charted. CookShop provides comprehensive lesson plans for educators. Ms. Elzoghby, the CookShop educator, guides the group of 16 students through the process of preparing a fresh salsa with cucumber dippers using vegetables provided by Food Bank. As the students begin cutting their cucumbers, one exclaims, "They smell good!" When asked about their favorite vegetables, responses include lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn, and carrots. Two students even discuss a famous YouTuber's knife skills, showcasing their growing interest in cooking. A seven-year-old practices knife skills.Students collaborate on making salsa. "I'm a chef at home!" one student proudly declares, while another chimes in, "I know how to use real knives." Their enthusiasm is palpable as they collaborate on the salsa recipe, eagerly calling out the next ingredients needed: “vinegar and oil!” It's clear they've learned their way around a salad dressing. Ms. Elzoghby helps a student add olive oil to dress the salsa. Ms. Elzoghby even incorporates math questions into the lesson, asking, "If I need to add two teaspoons, but I only have a half-teaspoon measurement spoon, what should I do?" She receives the correct answer of four total from an eager eight-year-old. Nutrition Education incorporates many subjects, and the curriculum is infused with math, science, literacy, and Social Emotional learning. Enthusiasm abounds: students eagerly raise their hands for extra carrots. When the vegetables are cut, but before it’s ready to be tasted, Ms. Elzoghby reviews the group's rules: "Don't yuck someone's yum" and "Don't eat until everybody's been served." With a countdown of "3...2...1...eat!" the tasting begins. Students are served salsa and wait until everyone has some to taste it. Food Bank's CookShop program encourages children to love fruits and vegetables. The group seems to enjoy what they’ve prepared, and one student excitedly says: "I'm gonna taste the juice! Good to the last drop!" While some find the onions "spicy," others delight in their flavor. Many even come back for seconds, a testament to the program's success in encouraging healthy eating habits. A student carefully tastes the "spicy" onions. As the lesson concludes, the students file out of the science lab having tasted six different vegetables in one lesson. Ms. Elzoghby reports that more students are trying the cafeteria’s offerings at their daily salad bar. Healthy eating habits have left the classroom and entered everyday life. The impact of Food Bank's CookShop program is evident: by nourishing both minds and bodies, CookShop is cultivating a generation of informed, enthusiastic, and healthy young New Yorkers. This salsa allowed the students to try more than 6 vegetables in one lesson. A holistic approach to Nutrition Education includes gardening. Food Bank's CookShop program has a much greater reach than most nutrition education programs in the city and is currently serving 63 schools. It employs a train-the-trainer model that enables more teachers to provide this type of education within their schools. Each year CookShop trains about 600 teachers to implement the program. For more information on how you can support or get involved with CookShop, click here. -
Food Insecurity |
ReadThe History & Impact of Urban Agriculture in NYC
There exists in New York City a groundswell of green. It’s not located in Central or Prospect Park, nor is it located in the forests of The Bronx. This green lives in...
There exists in New York City a groundswell of green. It’s not located in Central or Prospect Park, nor is it located in the forests of The Bronx. This green lives in the nearly 100 acres of community gardens and farms planted across the five boroughs of the city. Rooted on rooftops and vacant lots, these greenspaces are vital sources of food, fellowship, and education for the communities they serve. They’re also in constant danger of being destroyed from gentrification, displacement, and development. In this blog post, we’re going to explore the history of urban agriculture in New York and talk about why it's so important to the fight against hunger in our city. We’ll also chat with The Campaign Against Hunger, a Food Bank member agency that currently operates two farms in Brooklyn. ''They were getting ready to take something away from our community, something too important to lose... I told them I was born poor, I live poor, and I’m going to die poor. I don’t beg. But these are for the community. I asked [the city] to help me.” Out of context, these words from a 1982 New York Times interview could be about anything: affordable housing, local grocery stores, schools, churches. But spoken by then 82-year-old activist and environmentalist Hattie Carthan, they were about trees, specifically the 1,500 trees she had spent her twilight years planting as the leader of the “Bedford-Stuyvesant Beautification Committee.” When Carthan first moved onto Vernon Avenue in 1953, it was a beautiful tree-lined street in the heart of Bed-Stuy. But over the course of a decade, all but three of the trees had died, thanks in large part to neglect from the city. To fight back against this deterioration, Carthan organized her neighbors into the T&T-Vernon Block Association. Together, they held a BBQ to raise funds for four trees, which, when planted, quickly died. But thankfully, a much sturdier seed had taken root. By 1966, the Beautification Committee was in full swing and breathing new life into Bed-Stuy. At its height, it powered over 100 different block associations, each of which took ownership of its respective trees. In addition to her duties as Committee chair, Carthan also taught classes on tree care and conservation to students in the neighborhood. She would then hire and pay these same students to be part of her “Neighborhood Tree Corps,” which oversaw the maintenance of the hundreds of ginkgos, sycamores, and honey locusts blooming in the borough. Though Carthan received occasional grant support from the city, the Committee was always run by and for the community. In truth, her trees didn’t just beautify the neighborhood... they saved it. Carthan’s work marked a major turning point for urban agriculture in New York City. Though victory gardens had been popular throughout the 1940s (yielding some 200 million pounds of fresh produce for New Yorkers during the war), they mostly faded away by the early 1950s. After that, the only farm gardens left were owned and operated by city parks. Carthan, then, was one of the first to bring the practices of conservation and environmental education out of the bureaucratic system and into the streets. In many ways, she identified something that would come to inform the movement for years and decades to come: Greenspaces could revitalize and sustain historically underserved communities. This idea was put into practice throughout the 1970s by a variety of groups, most notably Liz Christy’s “Green Guerillas,” who planted sunflowers in traffic medians and threw seed bombs into vacant lots along the Bowery. The group blurred the lines between private and public space, seeing every crack and crevice as an opportunity to grow something beautiful. As the still operational collective writes on its website: “The green guerillas began rallying other people to use community gardening as a tool to reclaim urban land, stabilize city blocks, and get people working together to solve problems.” And work together they did. As the financial crisis of the 1970s left public and private lands abandoned by NYC developers, groups like Christy’s moved in to transform and repurpose these plots for the good of their surrounding communities. There was such a gardening boom at this time that the Department of Parks and Recreation established the GreenThumb Program to provide resources, licenses, and protection to these spaces. But as the green revolution began to feel more and more unstoppable, the economic prosperity of the 90s and early 2000s brought things to a screeching halt. Gardens were razed to make way for storefronts. Farms were decimated to grow high-rises instead of neighborhood-sustaining produce. Though coalitions were formed and lawsuits were leveraged against the government, there was little that gardeners and farmers could do to safeguard their land. As recently as last November, a group of 54 organizations came together to present the city with “From the Ground Up: A Petition to Protect New York City’s Community Gardens.” In it, they make a clear argument for why these spaces are so important: Community gardens alleviate food insecurity by providing folks with ready access to fresh, nutritious food. By increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables, community gardens help to confront public health disparities caused by racial and socioeconomic injustice in historically marginalized Black and Latinx communities throughout the city. Community gardens are a community-led response to environmental racism, helping to curb disproportionate air pollution and susceptibility to illness. Community gardens help to correct unequal access to greenspace in NYC by providing low-income New Yorkers with space to learn from and connect with nature. At Food Bank, we recognize the vital role that urban agriculture plays in the fight against hunger in our city. That’s why we partner with organizations across the five boroughs that operate their own community gardens and farms. One of these member agencies is The Campaign Against Hunger, which currently has two farms in Brooklyn: Far Rock Farm in Far Rockaway and Saratoga Farm in Bed-Stuy, not a stone’s throw from where Hattie Carthan planted her first tree nearly six decades ago. Like Carthan, TCAH takes a community-first approach to everything it does, which Director of Programs Tamara Dawson told me is what makes its farms so special. “For us, it’s important to understand our community and what it needs,” explained Dawson. “Before every growing season, we do a survey with our clients to figure out what they want to see, what they want us to grow. This is why we grow things like callaloo, snowy eggplant, and dwarf okra... we grow over 100 different species of produce because we want to meet the needs of individuals. It’s so nice when you see a family come in from wherever they’re from and say, ‘Oh my God! You have this?!’” It’s a transcendent moment, one that speaks not only to the importance of access and representation, but to the very power of food itself to affirm who we are and where we come from. By planting vegetables, fruits, and herbs from all over the world, TCAH builds an instant bridge to home for its neighbors, a bridge that might otherwise not exist at all. Aside from growing culturally appropriate food, TCAH also educates and employs students from the neighborhood to run and operate its farms. The Green Teens Program hearkens back to Carthan’s Neighborhood Tree Corps in that it empowers kids to give back and protect their communities. It also pays them, which allows them to support local businesses, take care of family, and live their lives with more dignity and freedom. “We are a product of our environment and of what we eat, [which is why] it’s so important that our farms are youth-run. It’s important for us to educate our youth not only on how to grow food, but how to stand up and be an advocate for food justice. Our green teens go out and partner with seniors in the neighborhood, show them different plants they can grow in their apartments, show them how to grow a tomato plant on the fire escape. It’s important that we give back to our community and that we educate from within.” Now more than ever, we must do our part to protect these invaluable spaces. As the New York City Community Garden Coalition (NYCCGC) and Earthjustice write in “From the Ground Up,” the way to do this is to increase legal protections for community gardens and farms by designating them as Critical Environmental Areas. That way, farmers will be able to grow food, educate the public, and sustain neighborhoods without fear of having their livelihoods destroyed. So spread the word, contact your local councilperson, and visit a garden in your neighborhood today! Taking the time to connect with the land and the people who work it will undoubtedly change your relationship with whatever city you call home. -
Nutrition and Health |
Read5 Fruits and Vegetables a Day the Colorful Way!
Stephanie, our Community Nutrition Manager, shares the correct way to measure fruits and vegetables, the benefits of color variety, and a refreshing Spinach and...
Stephanie, our Community Nutrition Manager, shares the correct way to measure fruits and vegetables, the benefits of color variety, and a refreshing Spinach and Blueberry Salad! -
Advocacy |
ReadThis is How We Fight Period Poverty
Period poverty is a phenomenon in which individuals are unable to access the menstrual care products they need to have healthy and hygienic periods. It’s a pervasive...
Period poverty is a phenomenon in which individuals are unable to access the menstrual care products they need to have healthy and hygienic periods. It’s a pervasive issue that affects communities around the world, including ones we serve here in New York City. In this article, we’re going to explore the subject of period poverty by defining what it is, digging into some research, consulting with experts, and discussing how we tackle the issue at Food Bank. What is Period Poverty? If you’re unfamiliar with the term “period poverty,” it basically refers to the difficulty some folks face in affording the menstrual hygiene products they need to safely take care of their periods. The monthly cost of period products can be extremely prohibitive for individuals already struggling to pay for things like food, rent, and utilities. So, they may go without, meaning they’ll either skip work or school to avoid the shame of menstruating in public without these tools or care for their periods using unsanitary goods like paper bags, toilet paper, bits of cloth, and rags. As the World Bank writes in its report on Period Poverty: “Given the multiple challenges [menstruators] face, it is evident that promoting menstrual hygiene management is not only a sanitation matter; it is also an important step towards safeguarding the dignity, bodily integrity, and overall life opportunities of [all who menstruate].” And this isn’t just anecdotal – though limited, research on the subject of period poverty has been gaining ground in recent years. A 2019 study explored the menstrual needs of low-income communities by surveying clients at 10 non-profit organizations in St. Louis. Researchers discovered that 64% of the 183 respondents were unable to afford menstrual care products in the previous year and nearly half could not afford to buy both food and menstrual hygiene products. The mental health implications are clear; according to a 2021 report, period poverty was found to be associated with increased levels of anxiety and depression. Dismantling Shame If the problem is so obvious, why hasn’t it been solved? One of the biggest roadblocks is that we’re not very good about talking about periods. There’s an immense amount of shame and stigma surrounding the topic, which can make it difficult for folks to have honest conversations about the needs of those who menstruate. “A major obstacle that stands in front of us... is this taboo around menstruation,” explains Period Inc. founder Nadya Okamoto in her 2016 TEDx Talk on the subject. "The most sustainable way to accomplishing... gender equality is by improving education and employment opportunities for women and girls. But no matter how much attention we put toward creating these opportunities, women and girls cannot take full advantage of them if periods [and period poverty] aren’t addressed.” This sentiment was echoed by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, Vice President for Development at the Brennan Center for Justice, founder of the non-profit group Period Equity, and author of Periods Gone Public. As she explained to me, she sees it as a scale of stigma, ranging from shushed conversations in the home to full-on derision in certain communities. The stigma is real, and there are many communities in which periods are derided, seen as culturally or socially undesirable, or viewed as dirty and problematic. There are places where people are forced out of public life when their periods begin. There’s a wide array of stigma that’s rooted in all of these institutions in our lives, whether cultural or religious, whether familial or generational. Advancing a public agenda around menstruation, then, is about dismantling this stigma. According to Weiss-Wolf, the only way to make menstruating more equitable is to normalize the discussion, to essentially create a “new bar” for what normal is. By doing this, we could increase access to period products (so folks could get to them for free without judgment) and finally do away with things like the much-maligned Tampon Tax. Defeating the Tampon Tax In many states, menstrual care products like tampons, pads, cups, and sponges are subject to sales tax when other items (like dandruff shampoo in Texas, licorice in Arizona, and chocolate bars in California) are not. They’re also not covered by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which means that even if you qualify for SNAP benefits, you still have to pay for period products. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but the fact that this tax only affects those who menstruate marks it as discriminatory and unconstitutional. Further, it prevents these products from being labeled as what they are – essentials that should be available to whoever needs them whenever they need them. Weiss-Wolf's work at Period Equity is all about fighting against this tax by leveraging lawsuits, tracking state movement on the tax, and raising awareness about the issue. There are still currently 30 states that tax menstrual hygiene products, and you can see the zany products they don’t tax on this fun interactive map. Ultimately, defeating the Tampon Tax is kind of like a Trojan Horse – eliminating it won’t immediately solve the issue of period poverty, but it will lift a small financial burden for those who can afford to buy these goods, challenge antiquated tax standards, and start a wider conversation about menstruation in the United States. “I come at this movement as both a lawyer and policy thinker,” explains Weiss-Wolf. “So, it’s not that the things that I work on need to be the focal point... but they are places where there’s opportunity to do policy and get things done.” Expanding the Conversation In addition to destigmatizing periods and fighting for policy change on the Hill, it’s vital that we expand and deepen our conversations around menstruation to make them more inclusive. Not all people who menstruate are women, and not all women menstruate. Period poverty affects not only women and girls, but transgender, genderqueer, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people, too. Menstruation is a natural bodily process, so there’s really no need to gender it at all. Instead of calling tampons and pads “feminine hygiene products,” for example, try calling them “menstrual care products” or “menstrual hygiene products.” When referring to people who have periods, try the term “menstruator,” an inclusive descriptor that embodies all who menstruate. At Food Bank, we’re working to neutralize our own conversations around period poverty. When we first started our “Woman to Woman” campaign in 2016, we were focusing on serving the unique needs of the 1 in 5 women and girls facing poverty in New York City. We soon realized, though, that they weren’t the only ones struggling to access menstrual care products or education around menstruation. That’s why we’re committed to being as inclusive as possible when talking about or educating on this subject. "When we think about this stigma attached to period poverty, we’re not just thinking about how it affects women and girls,” explains Amanda Williams, Manager of School & Community Based Initiatives at Food Bank For New York City. “It’s a widespread narrative that people can be a part of, however they identify.” Building on the Momentum Thankfully, there’s been a lot of great movement on the issue of menstrual equity in the past few years. Scotland, for example, made headlines in November when it became the first country in the world to make period products free for all. New Zealand quickly followed with the announcement that it would be providing free period products in all schools. And in New York City, two teenage advocates campaigned for period products to be included in COVID-19 emergency relief efforts... and won. Change is possible, and we’re feeling it in this very moment. Last spring, Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) introduced the “Menstrual Equity for All Act” in Congress, which proposed that Medicaid cover menstrual product purchases and demanded that schools, workplaces, and shelters provide free period products. Proponents of the bill argue that increasing access to these goods will not only alleviate a financial strain, but also diminish period shame. Some companies are also getting involved in these efforts. In 2018, Procter & Gamble launched its #EndPeriodPoverty campaign, which provides Always and Tampax products to food banks in the Feeding America network, including Food Bank For New York City. We then take these products and distribute them throughout our member network of food pantries, soup kitchens, and schools. At the moment, we partner with 25 schools across the five boroughs to provide free menstrual care products to their students, making it possible for them to access these goods without judgement or shame. “We began doing this three or four years ago when there was an ask around hygiene products brought to the New York City Council,” Williams told me. “The City Council was hearing from these families that this issue was as important as food insecurity, as housing insecurity. At Food Bank, when you get a chance to engage with these families... [you learn] that there are other pieces that are needed in a family to survive.” Getting Involved If you’re ready to join us in the fight against period poverty in New York City and beyond, visit our "Woman to Woman” campaign hub to find out how you can get involved. You can donate funds, give menstrual care products directly to our member agencies on the ground, or even start a personal fundraiser to get your family and friends involved, too. And if you simply want to learn more about the issue, check out these fantastic resources: “At Food Pantries, Addressing the Needs of Women” - The New York Times “Menstrual Equity: A Legislative Toolkit” - Period Equity & ACLU “The Fight for Menstrual Equity Continues in 2021” - Marie Claire “Why You Absolutely Need to Care About Period Poverty and Stigma” - Shape -
Recipes |
ReadA Healthy Dish of Smashed Potatoes with Kale
If you're anything like us, you're obsessed with mashed potatoes. Warmed with a pat of butter or simply served with a little S&P (salt and pepper, of course), this dish...
If you're anything like us, you're obsessed with mashed potatoes. Warmed with a pat of butter or simply served with a little S&P (salt and pepper, of course), this dish always brings us comfort when we need it most. And that's why we're so excited to be sharing our nutritious take on this decadent favorite with all of you today! Check out our recipe for Smashed Potatoes with Kale below, which details all the ingredients you need to buy and a step-by-step guide for whipping it up yourself! Ingredients One of the great things about this dish is you can really customize it for your personal tastes. If you don't like kale, you can swap out the greens for spinach. If you're not a fan of onions, you can always throw in a little garlic or shallots. Truly, it's up to you, but for the purpose of our recipe, we're sticking with the following ingredients: 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil 6 cups of diced potatoes (cut in 1/4 in. squares) 6 cups of diced kale (cut in 1 in. pieces) 3 tablespoons of chopped scallions 1/4 tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes (or more if you like it spicy) Salt and pepper, to taste How to Make Thankfully, this recipe is pretty easy. In fact, the hardest thing to do is prep the potatoes, which requires a little bit of elbow grease and patience. We recommend rinsing the potatoes well and scrubbing the skin to remove any access dirt. Then, cut off the ends to make a flat surface and carefully slice lengthwise before making the smaller cubes. Once you've got your potatoes prepped, simply: 1. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. 2. Add potatoes and cook for 5 minutes. 3. Add kale and cook for 5 more minutes. 4. Add 1 cup of water, cover, and cook for 5 more minutes. 5. Mash potatoes and kale until smooth with a fork. 6. Add scallions, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. 7. Serve hot and enjoy! For more tips on how to prepare this scrumptious dish, take a peek at how our Community Nutrition Manager Stephanie Alvarado likes to make it! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Food Bank For New York City (@foodbank4nyc) Food Bank For New York City sourced this yummy recipe from Just Say Yes, which provides nutrition education for low-income New Yorkers and those participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. -
Food Assistance |
ReadWelcome to The Core!
Welcome to The Core, Food Bank For New York City’s new blog! We created this space to dive a little deeper into the subjects, stories, and stakeholders that power our...
Welcome to The Core, Food Bank For New York City’s new blog! We created this space to dive a little deeper into the subjects, stories, and stakeholders that power our mission. You may be familiar with Food Bank as the city's largest hunger relief organization, but our work actually spans a great deal more. So, The Core will give you insight into how we operate, who we serve, and what kinds of impact we make across all five boroughs of the greatest city in the world. But don’t worry, we won’t just be talking about New York! Anyone and everyone with a hunger for food justice, equity, and advocacy will find a home here where they can learn new ideas and read some fantastic stories. To that end, we’ll have content covering a variety of subjects, including: Activism, Nutrition + Health, Financial Empowerment, and Stories from the Field. So, let’s meet these categories and figure out how we use them here at Food Bank and what they’ll mean to you. Activism Activism is at the heart of everything we do. To fight hunger is to actively fight poverty, which includes standing up for and supporting low-income New Yorkers and their families. This means not only getting them the resources they need to survive and thrive, but also advocating for policies that serve their best interests. So, we’ll be tagging stories that deal with both activism and advocacy in the hunger space. We’ll share information about the fights we’re taking on and the ones waging at the local, state, and federal levels. To get involved with our own efforts, join Food Bank’s action team. Nutrition + Health Another important facet of our work is nutrition, specifically as it relates to education, health and equity. Our nutrition program focuses on teaching folks how to establish and maintain healthy habits on a limited budget, which helps to fight hunger while addressing some of poverty’s key contributing factors – in both the short and long term. So, we’ll be giving you your fill of yummy recipes, nutrition tips, and resources exploring the relationships between food, health, culture, and poverty. Food Assistance In this category, we’ll explore not only the topic of food assistance, but also SNAP benefits and enrollment as well as insights into the various factors that impact emergency food providers across the city. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to find food whenever they need it. To do that, we’ve created an array of tools New Yorkers can use to source free meals and connect with local pantries and soup kitchens for immediate food assistance. If you’re looking for food assistance now, check out our virtual food locator. Financial Empowerment Financial empowerment refers to the sense of security that comes from being in control of one’s finances. Have you ever been down to your last 20 bucks, with more month to go before your next check? Not a great feeling. Well, for many low-income New Yorkers, living in a city as expensive as ours makes that feeling a constant companion. To help the New Yorkers we serve feel more financially empowered, we offer an array of financial resources, from free tax assistance for the working poor to SNAP enrollment and community-based financial coaching. We designed these tools because the truth is, fighting hunger takes more than food. If there’s a change in tax policy that could impact New Yorkers or if we’re leading a free (virtual) workshop on financial management, we’ll make sure to cover it here. We’ll also provide tips anyone can use to become a better budgeter! Research The hunger space is a dynamic one, so it’s important to stay on top of all the latest research to ensure that our messaging is current to our cause and relevant to our communities. Food Bank’s proprietary research has long been industry-leading, but we also rely on reports from other prominent institutions to inform the work we do. To keep you up-to-date, we’ll be sharing all of our latest research findings on this blog. Stories from the Field Here, we’ll feature photographs, interviews, and videos from the field. We work with over 1,000 food pantries, soup kitchens, and schools across the city, and our partners on the ground are the ones who keep this whole operation running. And trust us – they've got plenty of stories to tell! We’ll also share stories from those who experience hunger firsthand so that you can better understand what food insecurity actually looks like. To make sure you never miss a single anecdote, hit subscribe to get fresh updates on The Core as soon as they arrive.