Photo: City Harvest
As we acknowledge the one-year anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, City Harvest, New York’s first and largest food rescue organization, released a report on the COVID-19 pandemic’s direct impact on food insecurity in NYC, titled, “It Takes a City to Feed a City: One Year of Feeding New Yorkers During a Pandemic.”
Included within the report are alarming stats, firsthand accounts from those on the frontline of NYC’s hunger crisis and visual documentation of the need across the five boroughs.
Today, the organization released an accompanying video of the same name, detailing the increase in need—and in New York City solidarity—narrated by Keith Carr, Senior Policy and Government Relations Manager for City Harvest.
City Harvest reports that it saw nearly six million more visits to the network of 400 pantries and soup kitchens it serves, compared to the same period the year before. Additionally, according to Robin Hood, more than one in three New Yorkers visited a food pantry this year. From March 2020 through January 2021, City Harvest rescued and delivered 124.7 million pounds of food, more than double the amount over the same period the year before (62.1 million pounds).
As the pandemic drags on and demand continues to grow, City Harvest now expects to rescue and deliver 144 million pounds of nutritious food by the end of FY21 (July 2020 to June 2021)—more than double (125% increase) the amount it planned on in FY20.
To read “It Takes a City to Feed a City: One Year of Feeding New Yorkers During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” please click here. To watch a two-minute video released today accompanying the report, please click here.
Aligning with the report, City Harvest recently launched an “It Takes a City to Feed a City” billboard in Times Square (47th St. and 7th Ave), which will run through next week, to thank the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who have stepped up to help feed our neighbors in need during the crisis.
This “love letter” mosaic to New Yorkers features photographs of many of the more than 80,000 New Yorkers who have donated to, worked for and volunteered with City Harvest, and the millions who have been served by the organization since the pandemic began in March 2020.
The mosaic also features many prominent supporters, including Richard Gere, Bridget Moynahan and Brooks Nader, as well as members of the City Harvest Food Council like Eric Ripert, Geoffrey Zakarian, Melba Wilson, Emma Bengsston and many others.
