Member Spotlight: City Harvest

posted by Loren Talbot, Local Labels

During this holiday season, FSNYC Communications Committee member Loren Talbot  took the opportunity to speak with Jilly Stephens, Executive Director of City Harvest to learn more about their organization's work. Read the interview below.

What is City Harvest’s mission and role?

City Harvest exists to end hunger in communities throughout New York City. We do this through food rescue and distribution, education, and other practical, innovative solutions. Now serving New York City for over 25 years, City Harvest is the world’s first food rescue organization, dedicated to feeding the city’s hungry men, women and children.

Please tell us about City Harvest’s daily operations and where it collects food from.

This year, City Harvest will collect 23 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers and farms. This food is then delivered free of charge to more than 600 community food programs throughout New York City using a fleet of trucks and bikes as well as volunteers on foot. Each week, City Harvest helps over 260,000 hungry New Yorkers find their next meal.

Do you collect more food during the holidays?

Yes, during the holiday season City Harvest partners with the Daily News for the annual Daily News Readers Care to Feed the Hungry Food Drive which engages the entire city to collect nonperishable food for city agencies. Last year this drive raised nearly 800,000 pounds of food between November and January in addition to our regular food rescue activities.

Last holiday season we rescued and delivered 6 million pounds of food total. We hope to match or exceed that volume this year.

What are some of City Harvest’s local NYC interventions?

In addition to food rescue and delivery, we facilitate initiatives to help individuals, neighborhoods, and communities improve access to healthy and affordable foods. The bi-monthly City Harvest Mobile Markets directly distribute thousands of pounds of produce to two low-income neighborhoods, Melrose in the Bronx, and Stapleton in Staten Island. We oversee Community Food Assessments that develop deeper understanding of local food systems and how they affect residents’ food behaviors. Our Healthy Neighborhood program works to develop effective and sustainable programs to increase healthy food access. This also includes nutrition education and cooking classes. We are also increasingly working with SchoolFood, to ensure that the school meal programs can feed as many students as possible with the best food possible.

What is one of the most important actions NYC can take to curb hunger?

We’d love to see more people taking advantage of food stamps, WIC, and school meals. The City is working on this, and we support even greater outreach to increase participation in these programs. The hope is that as more people access benefits that assist them to purchase food, the less they will have to rely on free sources of emergency food. For individuals and companies that want to take action, they can volunteer their time or donate food to pantries and soup kitchens.

On a city, state and federal level, are there any specific pieces of policy out there that we can support to further the mission of City Harvest?

Right now the Department of Education is expanding a classroom breakfast pilot in city schools. Students who would normally miss breakfast are able to get a meal because it’s served at the start of the school day after buses arrive. We can encourage the DOE to move quickly to make this program a citywide program. At the State Level, in spite of the fiscal situation, the State Food Policy Council is eager to support a good food system, and we are eager to support initiatives there. Locally, several barriers prohibit low-income New Yorkers from participating in the Food Stamp program, and elimination of those barriers would enable more people to access benefits they are entitled to that can help them purchase good food. And, structural changes to the Emergency Food Assistance Program could allow access to culturally appropriate food choices, particularly for Kosher feeding programs. Federally, we plan to be active in the Child Nutrition Reauthorization and the reauthorization of the Transportation Bill.

How did City Harvest get involved in FSNYC?

City Harvest has been active in the Governing Board for several years. We have offered matching support in various grants that FSNYC has applied for. Really, the mission of FSNYC supports the mission of City Harvest, so we are proud to be a part of the Network and to experience the growth and stature of the organization.

How does City Harvest see the FSNYC furthering their mission?

City Harvest takes a holistic approach to ending hunger in NYC, and we collaborate with organizations and professionals from other sectors to accomplish this work. Membership in FSNYC comes from a variety of sectors whose work supports feeding hungry New Yorkers, including public health, urban planning, agriculture, government, research, marketing, etc. City Harvest benefits from the exchange of information and energy through FSNYC around these issues to continue and expand its work.

Please share a brief interesting fact about City Harvest.

Through the course of a year, each City Harvest truck will travel 14,000 miles – more than half the distance of the equator.

Thanks for your time!