Food Bank For New York City is so grateful for everything you do over the holiday season and throughout the year — and so are the 1.5 million New Yorkers who rely on our programs and services. It is because of YOU, our supporters, that the 1 in 5 children who relies on soup kitchens and food pantries in NYC have the nourishment they need to grow healthy and strong. It is because of YOU that veterans returning from overseas will have somewhere to turn if he or she find themselves struggling to afford food.

Cheryl with a carton of fat-free milk from the Food Bank's Community Kitchen & Food Pantry. Photo by Karen Smul, courtesy of Professional Women Photographers "PWP."

"October was the first time I came for groceries at the [Community Kitchen & Food Pantry]. I get food stamps, but sometimes it's not enough. It's a help, but when I get to the end of the month, sometimes I need some extra help. So I come here.

"The pantry helped me a lot with Thanksgiving. The rice and chicken I picked up at the pantry made the meal. I had a really good holiday because of it.

"I think the way they do it here is good. Instead of just picking up a bag, I can pick what I need. It’s just like the supermarket.

"Please keep it going. This is so great for the community. It helps a lot of people get by, and I am real thankful that it's here for us."

Happy Hanukkah from the Food Bank family to your's! As you enjoy the holiday with latkes and sufganiyot, know that your support helps make sure that Jewish families throughout the five boroughs can enjoy the holiday season with all the food they need to stay happy and healthy.

Menorah hung underneath the the Q line on Brighton Beach Avenue in Brooklyn.

photo by Lee Gillen

This holiday season, give your family and friends gifts that give back. Let Ruth Reichl help you pick the perfect gift with her holiday shopping list on Gilt Taste — but move fast, because today’s the LAST DAY TO SHOP. But don’t fret if you are too slow. You can still add color to someone’s table or spice up their life with the holiday gift ideas below — all to benefit hunger relief!

LAST DAY: Ruth Reichl’s Holiday Picks Benefit Food Bank 
Ruth Reichl, legendary food writer, editor and Food Bank Culinary Council member, curates a holiday shopping list of her favorite items just for us. Shop Gilt Taste now through December 6 and 100 percent of the purchase prices will be donated to the Food Bank.  To see Ruth’s holiday picks, visit Gilt Taste > 

Honor Your Loved Ones
Show your loved ones how much you care by making a donation in their honor for the holidays! Pick from our selection of holiday eCards, and make sure to let the recipient know that their gift is helping provide much needed meals  to New Yorkers who struggle to afford food for themselves and their families. Give today >

Fishs Eddy ‘Dishes Out’ Hunger Relief
In celebration of Fishs Eddy’s 25th anniversary, they've created an exciting new line of dishes and kitchen accessories to benefit Food Bank! The line consists of 14 products each in Food Bank’s signature orange, the color of hunger awareness. Five percent of all proceeds from the new line will be donated to the Food Bank to help the 1.5 million New Yorkers who rely on our programs and services. From dishwasher-safe serve ware, glassware, dish towels, refrigerator magnets, coasters to t-shirt for those who literally want to wear the cause on their sleeve, there’s no end to the creative ways to show your support for the Food Bank. Shop now > 

Gilt City Events With Star Chefs
The Food Bank has joined forces with Gilt City and NYC’s culinary luminaries in the fight to end hunger. Now through December 16 — you can buy gifts such as working with Food Bank Culinary Council member Emeril Lagasse to create recipes based on your favorite ingredients. Also available, a shopping trip to the green market followed by a tasting dinner for four from JoeDoe. Find out more by visiting Gilt City > 

Every November, the Food Bank experiences an outpouring of support that helps sustain our efforts to fight hunger all year round. As one of our supporters, we’d like to thank you for everything you do to help us reach New Yorkers who struggle to afford food.

And, we would like to suggest a new way to make a difference for this holiday season – hold a Virtual Food Drive!

Many of you surely have fond memories of donating cans to a traditional food drive at your school, church, synagogue or community center. Well, you can now have that same experience while doubling or even tripling the amount of food your dollar can provide (plus, you’ll get a tax receipt for your donation!).

When you register for a Virtual Food Drive, you will be provided with a personalized web page with six aisles of food and Beyond Food items. And, while $15 may buy as much as 8 pounds of bell peppers at the supermarket, thanks to the Food Bank's wholesale purchasing power and efficient distribution model that same $15 can help provide 25 pounds of peppers through our Virtual Food Drive!

But we hope you won’t stop there. To make the biggest impact possible on hunger this holiday season, set a fundraising goal and invite your friends, family and coworkers to shop through your Virtual Food Drive page! For every purchase your community makes, you’ll see your goal thermometer rise, knowing that every $1 donated can help provide 5 meals for New Yorkers who might otherwise have to go without.

Thank you for your support – without you we wouldn’t be able to bring a happy Thanksgiving to all the New Yorkers who rely on our network of soup kitchens and food pantries.

By Matthew Rebholz, FedEx Senior Communications Specialist,

FedEx team members are gathering today to kick off a $2 for $1 matching fundraiser to support the Food Bank For New York City’s Community Kitchen & Food Pantry in Harlem. This year, the Community Kitchen lost nearly half of its annual budget because of reallocations in state funding. 

Inspired by the Community Kitchen’s daily efforts to provide nutritious food for low-income New Yorkers in the face of a reduced budget, FedEx is aiming to raise $5,000 through our Virtual Food Drive page. On this page, you can make a difference by shopping through five aisles of food items — many of which are commonly served at the Kitchen.

And remember, FedEx will donate $2 for every $1 you give through our Virtual Food Drive — so help us hit our goal by October 26 and triple your impact on hunger in New York City!

As a longtime Food Bank partner, FedEx is thrilled to leverage its support of the Food Bank to help turn $5,000 in individual donations into $15,000 — which can provide 75,000 meals at the Community Kitchen. But if we’re going to hit that goal, we need your help. So, please, donate today and pass the word on!

By Triada Stampas, 

Click here to enlarge

As budget and deficit reduction negotiations continue in Washington, the future of critical safety-net programs like food stamps (SNAP) and emergency food (TEFAP) remains uncertain — recent proposals threaten deep cuts.

Just a few weeks ago, a few of our community-based member organizations kicked off a paper plate campaign to help share the voices and the stories of the 1.4 million New York City residents who rely on food pantries and soup kitchens with our members of Congress. Their messages, written on paper plates, are a powerful reminder of the struggles so many New Yorkers face just to keep food on the table.

The Food Bank has sent 1,000 paper plates to Washington so far, and the campaign is still going! Paper plates collected between now and the end of October will be hand-delivered to Congress Members’ offices in early November. Food Bank member organizations that participate will receive a supply of paper plates and an easy-to-follow guide for engaging clients, volunteers, staff and board members in the campaign.

If you are at a Food Bank member or partner organization and would like to join the campaign, please contact Community Outreach Manager Roxanne Henry.

Tangy Mama here! We may have met at a past year’s festival, but in case not I should introduce myself. Not only am I the friendliest dumpling you’ve ever met and the mascot of the Annual Tang’s Natural NYC Dumpling Festival, but I’m also a proud member of the fight to end hunger!

Luckily our 3rd Annual Tang’s Natural NYC Dumpling Festival is right around the corner, so if we haven’t met I hope to see you there! This year’s event, on September 17, is sure to be a dough-ball of fun with eleven restaurant booths serving an entire array of international dumpling varieties. They say “it takes one to know one,” and this little dumpling-lady knows her dumpling business and says that this festival shouldn’t be missed!

I love seeing the crowds of people enjoying such delicious dumplings, all while supporting one of my favorite non-profit organizations: Food Bank For New York City. There are so many booths to choose from, including miss Korea BBQ, Veselka and Ivy Bakery. The scheduled live performances are sure to please: the talented dance ensemble, Lei Pasifika is sure to impress the crowds with their Polynesian dance. If I’m a lucky dumpling, maybe I’ll learn a new dance step or two!

But that’s not all! This year, the Chef One Dumpling Eating Contest, one of our featured events, is in its 8th year! Additionally, dumpling history will be made, as Guinness World Records^® will also be there to preside over an attempt to see who can set the new record of “Most Dumplings Eaten in 2 Minutes”! My goodness!

A whole festival devoted to dumplings — I couldn’t be more excited — especially since all proceeds benefit the Food Bank For New York City. Last year, we raised more than 220,000 meals for New Yorkers who struggle to afford food. I can’t wait to see how we do this September! So save the date, bring your family and friends out to Sara D. Roosevelt Park on E. Houston Street! I hope to see you there!
 

By Lisa Yakuboff,

Last year, the Food Bank helped recruit, organize and manage over 1,250 volunteers for the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival. This September 29 – October 2, 2011, another round of volunteers will join top chefs and culinary luminaries as they share their passion for food –all coming together for hunger relief.

Ever since its inception I’ve wanted to be a part of the Festival. I love experiencing new foods and learning new recipes or creative ideas and trade secrets from well-respected chefs. Oh, and did I mention I love to eat? Last year I finally got to go, but not in the way I originally expected to – I had just started my job at the Food Bank and, as an employee, we are encouraged to volunteer.  I was so excited to go and it was an amazing experience, working with volunteers who not only love food but were also dedicated to the Food Bank’s mission to end hunger.  It was a win-win situation that was incredibly rewarding. The Festival is the largest volunteer effort the Food Bank coordinates each year and the stats are impressive: last year more than 1,250 volunteers donated over 5,000 hours of their time to over the course of the long weekend, and $1.2 million was raised for the Food Bank and Share Our Strength, a national hunger-relief charity organization dedicated to helping children.

The Festival tagline this year is “Eat. Drink. End Hunger”  - a fitting motto for the weekend’s volunteers.   Last year, I learned just how special Festival volunteers are: not only did they get to enjoy themselves at a great festival, they also got a little something extra from the experience because the time and effort put into volunteering helped the Food Bank raise money to put food onto the table of those who can’t afford it. Something that drew me to work at the Food Bank in the first place was the feeling that everyone should be able to have access to, and enjoy, wonderful foods. It was so reassuring to meet chefs and work with volunteers who share the same belief: no one should go hungry.

A highlight for me were the individual chef talks.  Alton Brown, Anne Burrell – a member of Food Bank’s Culinary Council - and Ming Tsai were very approachable and incredibly engaged with their fans. We collected tickets, offered directions, worked with the chefs, and made sure everyone at the events had a great time. There were volunteers who had worked with the Food Bank for years in all different ways (the returning Food Bank volunteers I spoke with loved volunteering at our warehouse repack room and our community kitchen), there were those who had only volunteered with the festival and come back every year, and those who heard about it, wanted to get involved, and were volunteering with the Food Bank for the first time – just like me.

This year there are more than 100 events calling for volunteers, with so many opportunities to meet new people, even famous chefs.  This year, I’m hoping to volunteer at our information booth, maybe work the brand new “Fried” event with Tyler Florence and Elizabeth Karmel, or Rock & Bowl with Anne Burrell, or Sweet (the very first event in 2007, from which the entire festival grew).

There are so many fun options to choose from... I look forward to seeing you at some of them!

For more information about events, check out the Festival site. Interested in volunteering? Click here!

By Noemie Craven,

It’s a rainy Monday evening in Union Square, and the buzz in the air is louder than usual.  Commuters rushing to their trains slow down and are drawn to the southwestern corner of the square by music coming from a cheery blue truck: it's Barilla's Pasta truck, bringing a Meal for a Meal  to busy commuter hubs all over the city!

The concept is simple:

For each dinner kit given away, Barilla will donate $1 to the Food Bank.  With a campaign slated to give away 20,000 kits, and the Food Bank's buying power stretching each dollar to provide 5 meals, a Meal for a Meal can provide 100,000 meals for New Yorkers in need.

Each person that stops by the truck receives a free Spaghettata To-Go dinner kit  which includes a box of Barilla spaghetti, fresh greens, a jar of Barilla sauce, exclusive Academia Barilla olive oil and vinegar and two tickets to Casa Barilla - everything you need to share the table with family and friends.

The kits are going fast but you still have time to pick one up tonight, August 17 and tomorrow, August 18.  You can find the pasta truck at 59 Street and Lexington Avenue tonight from 4-8pm (or while supplies last) and at the same time Thursday at West 58 Street and Columbus Circle.

Barilla's celebration of Italian food and culture continues into September with Casa Barilla,  taking place in Central Park from the 13th to the 16th.  This 4-day celebration of Italian food and culture will feature interactive cooking classes, food and culture workshops, children's activities and more.  Each $5 admission to Casa Barilla will be donated to the Food Bank.

And for an extra special Italian treat, Barilla is sponsoring Andrea Bocelli: Live in Central Park  on September 15.   As the exclusive food provider for concert-goers, Barilla will create a cultural and culinary experience inspired by the cuisine of Italy and donate 25% of all sales to the Food Bank.

Buon Appetito!

Photo: Getty Images for Barilla

By Daniel Buckley,

When it’s time to buy new clothes or get that book you’ve been wanting to read, I’m guessing you love the convenience of online shopping. But when it comes to supporting your favorite cause — the Food Bank, of course! — the first thought that comes to mind for many people is going to the store and buying canned goods for a food drive.

But what if you could take the $4 you might spend on a can of soup and use it to buy 50 pounds of potatoes? With the Food Bank’s new Virtual Food Drive your dollar can do much more — providing twice or even three times the amount of food you could purchase at a supermarket — all with the convenience of shopping online.

Your donation is able to go so far because the Food Bank has access to wholesale prices directly from distributors. On top of that, as the organizer of your own Virtual Food Drive, you can extend your impact on hunger even further by inviting your family, friends and coworkers to shop from six aisles of food and Beyond Food items to support the Food Bank.

Signing up to hold my own Virtual Food Drive was easy — I just chose an exceedingly flattering photo of myself, entered a personal message, edited my page title and was ready to go!

Plus, the Virtual Food Drive lets you set your own fundraising goal. Since it is so easy to share your personal page online — through email, Facebook, Twitter and more — I was able to rally my friends behind me and I hit my original goal ($300) in just one day! Since I hit my goal so quickly, I increased it to $500, and have surpassed that now too.

Most people picked an item here and there — carrots from the Produce aisle or cheese from the Dairy & Eggs aisle. Once a few of them filled their cart and proceeded to checkout, the funds really added up!

Now when you think of supporting hunger relief, your first thought may still be of food drives – but maybe you will think of the impact of a Virtual Food Drive.