This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was authored by Rich Calder.
Mayor Bill de Blasio
William Farrington
The city’s struggling food pantries are getting an additional $25 million in emergency funding, the mayor and council speaker announced Friday.
The cash will be added to the $25 million pledged by Albany last week to help more than 800 organizations in the five boroughs, including food pantries, soup kitchens and charities that deliver meals or groceries to the doors of those in need during the coronavirus crisis, officials said.
“No one should have to question where their next meal is coming from,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in announcing the latest funding.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson said the Council has been asking for two weeks for food-support funding, which “will pay for over 19 million meals.
“We must continue to do everything we can to prevent a hunger crisis in New York City,” Johnson said.
The city’s newly appointed “food czar,” Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, said her team will continue direct outreach to organizations to alert them to how to access emergency funds.
Nearly one-third of food pantries in the five boroughs have already shut down as they struggle to feed the growing number of New Yorkers left jobless by the COVID-19 bug that has shuttered thousands of businesses.
“City Harvest, for instance, has seen 86 of the community food programs it usually serves shut down because of precautionary measures or lack of staffing”
Both Jilly Stephens, CEO of City Harvest and David Greenfield, CEO of Met Council, thanked de Blasio and the Council, saying through the joint statement that the pandemic “has already caused massive damage to the food pantry system.”
They also said, the extra funding “will go a long way towards not only stabilizing” local food pantries “but [also] making sure we can meet the demands expected of us in the coming months.”
A map of local pantries and other food support outlets can be found at NYC.gov/GetFood.