“Now I Get To Pay It Back”

Growing up in a Massachusetts housing project, Bob knew only government-issue orange cheese until a monthly truck brought blocks of unbranded white cheese and milk that carried his family through — food that eventually helped get him through school, football, the Navy, and college.

That same path led him to Food Bank For New York City, where he now serves as Chief Procurement Officer, known affectionately as “the Big Cheese,” though he’s quick to credit his team over himself. Today he helps run day-to-day operations across the organization, including efforts to strengthen the soup kitchen and pantry in Harlem, driven by the belief that food security lets people focus on work and kids focus on school.

For Bob, the story closes a loop: the kid who once waited for the truck is now the one making sure it keeps rolling for someone else. “Now I get to pay it back,” he says.

Give today and keep the truck rolling — so the next kid waiting on it gets food today and a food-secure tomorrow.

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Bob Silvia, Chief Procurement Officer:

Morning.

Warehouse Professional:

Morning, sir. How are you?

Bob:

Not too bad. How are you?

There is a joke around the food bank that Bob didn’t even know that white cheese existed until he was ten.

It’s a true story. I thought all cheese was fluorescent orange. There was a revelation when I saw white cheese. I was like, “That’s not cheese.”

So I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts in a housing project and looked forward to seeing the truck roll through the apartments and onto the basketball court, where the guys would roll up the back of the truck and they would give out evaporated milk and government cheese.

By getting the TEFAP food when I was a kid and getting the government food—the box of milk that said “Milk.” That was my favorite thing. It just said, “Milk.”

No need for color. Milk.

Right?

By getting that, you know, that allowed me to go to school. It got me graduated, it got me football, it got me into the Navy, it got me into college after the Navy, and then after that, it got me here. It just became a natural path to go into the world of nonprofit.

I think this happens with a lot of people who work in food banks. We didn’t start off working in a food bank; we were actually the recipients of the food from the food bank.

So as the Chief Procurement Officer, I bring in all the food—or my team does. I don’t do anything. I’m insignificant compared to the people around me. I mean, I work with absolute stars.

I also help oversee the operations of the food bank, and I’ve recently been working to help our soup kitchen and our pantry in Harlem kind of be the best they can be as well. I’m trying to do that by tying everybody together—you know, kind of one team, one dream.

We are part of the supply chain. We are part of people’s lives. We make it possible for people to go to work, for kids to go to school, and not think about where their next meal is coming from. And that’s really what it’s all about, right?

So now I get to pay back every time that truck drove onto the playground, landed on the basketball court, and gave out that cheese.

All I am now is the guy driving onto the basketball court, giving out cheese.