MANHATTAN, NEW YORK — On a Tuesday morning during Women’s History Month, 100 women gathered at Nike NYHQ — corporate leaders, Employee Resource Groups, advocates and community members — for a breakfast and conversation about what it actually takes to keep New York running.
Hosted by Food Bank For New York City, in partnership with Nike and the Women of Nike Employee Resource Group, the event marked the 10th anniversary of Woman to Woman, a campaign founded by Food Bank For NYC Board Member Emeritus Katie Lee Biegel to support women facing hunger with both food and essential items like period products and personal hygiene supplies.
Before anyone took a seat, they stood shoulder to shoulder packing hygiene kits — including donated products such as Tampax tampons, Always Pantyliners, Prevail by First Quality lavender body wipes, United Airlines Amenity Kits, SheaMoisture Deodorant, and Farmacy Beauty lip balm. The kind of essentials that don’t get talked about enough but matter just as much as food. Kits that would make their way to mobile pantries across the five boroughs within days.
Then the panel began.
Biegel grounded the reality driving the work.
“Women make up nearly sixty percent of New Yorkers who turn to Food Bank For NYC for help… usually not just for themselves, but for their families,” she said.
She pointed to the gap many women face — where food assistance exists, but basic necessities do not. “SNAP does not cover women’s essentials like feminine care products. How can we break the cycle of poverty if you can’t meet those basic needs?”
Teen girls missing school or sitting out of sports practice every month because they can’t afford a pad. Women pulling paper towels from dispensers to use instead. A mother who qualifies for SNAP but is on her own for everything else.
“As a mother myself, I really cannot imagine that stress. Women carry so much — and yet they’re often the ones making the hardest sacrifices.”
Fasina Moore, a Harlem-born tile setter, small business owner and this year’s Woman to Woman honoree, spoke as a working mother who has relied on Food Bank For NYC’s mobile pantry.
“Everyone is just one break in a supply chain away from hunger,” Moore said.
She described the people she sees every day — families, students, parents working multiple jobs. “You see people doing everything right. And it’s still not enough.”
For Aaliyah Bartholomew, a Biology student at Medgar Evers College and member of Food Bank For NYC’s Emerging Youth Advocacy Leaders Council, the contrast couldn’t be sharper. She grew up in Grenada, where her family farmed, bartered with neighbors, and shared whatever was in season — where you could step outside and grow something. Then she arrived in New York City and learned what a food desert was.
“New York is one of the richest cities,” she said, “but not everyone is living that rich life.”
Now advocating for food justice here, she described how hunger shows up in the small, daily decisions students don’t talk about. “You skip breakfast. You skip lunch. You stretch what you have. And it affects everything — your ability to focus, to learn, to show up.”
Gloria Pitagorsky, Vice Chair of Food Bank For NYC’s Board of Directors, knows that extending a hand changes everything. Her family arrived in this country as immigrants with very little — and organizations like Food Bank For NYC met them at their moment of need.
“My story’s not a unique one,” she said. “When someone’s at their lowest moment, a simple gesture — getting food, knowing that someone cares about your well-being — that matters. And if you’re in a place to give back, you do.”
Then Taryn Delaney Smith, a comedian, actor, former Miss New York and content creator with more than 1.6 million followers, shifted the conversation from awareness to action.
“I’m still angry,” she said. “I’m angry about the policies. I’m angry about the apathy. But I don’t think it’s about not being mad — I think it’s about what you do with that anger.”
“So the question is — what are you going to do about it?”
It’s a question the room was built to answer.
United Airlines — a longtime Food Bank For NYC partner whose employees and customers call this city home — put it plainly: “Investing in the communities we serve is part of who we are. It’s how we uplift the city and show how good leads the way,” said Lyndsay Lawler, Senior Specialist of Community and Market Impact.
After the panel, the conversation didn’t end — Guests kept going — packing a total of 500 hygiene kits, making new connections, and carrying the energy of the morning out into the city with them.
Because the women keeping this city running — laying its floors, studying in its classrooms, leading our businesses and board rooms, stretching every dollar — deserve a city that runs for them, too.
That’s not charity. That’s Woman to Woman. Ten years in, and we’re just getting started.
Ready to show up for women and families across New York City? Connect with our Corporate Engagement team to explore opportunities.
