Farm to Food Bank | At The Warehouse

Four thirty in the morning, and this crew is already moving — because this isn’t just a job, it’s the heartbeat of the whole operation. Some of them know hunger firsthand, the kind that stares back at you from an empty fridge, and that memory is exactly why they show up. Every case counted, every pallet wrapped tight, every truck loaded right — because one mistake means somebody doesn’t eat tonight.

This isn’t a one-person job; it’s a team pulling in the same direction, cooler to truck to five boroughs, until the last pallet is put away. And when it is, they go home knowing their hands fed somebody real. Tomorrow, they do it again.

Give today — help this team keep showing up before sunrise to make sure all New Yorkers have access to the food they need to feed their families.

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

Transcript:

Marcus Stenson, Warehouse Professional

This job is different. This job is special.

How are you guys today?

And you see how special it is once you walk through those doors.

With a staff like we have, it is very difficult for you to find that number of people that work with their heart, and they do.

This is what I’m talking about.

Elizabeth Romano, Senior Director of Operations

I call this the heartbeat of our organization.

This team is in here at 4:30 in the morning until we’re done.

They know what this mission is.

Ed Cabrera, Logistics Assistant 

They know that if this food doesn’t get to where it goes, a lot of people go to sleep hungry.

Marcus 

Remember, you got four, then he gave you three. That’s seven.

I know what it is to not have food.

Elizabeth 

I did not know that the lines I would stand in as a little girl…

I was standing on the patio.

Marcus 

It’s very hard. It’s very stressful. It’s mentally stressful to know that you’re waking up and looking at your cabinets—they’re empty. Your refrigerator is empty. You have nothing. I personally know how that is.

Elizabeth

As soon as I figured out what Food Bank for New York City was, I fell in love with it.

Marcus 

Food Bank came calling, ringing, and that’s how I got here.

Gotta move this over here.

I get to do something for people to prevent them from going through what I went through.

Ed

This is not a one-man show. It’s not. Okay?

This is a team effort.

No problem.

Marcus

It’s a lot that goes into how we do our job and how we get it done.

I have some selectors—they’re in the cooler selecting maybe a thousand cases of food, and then they have to come out of the cooler and pick maybe four hundred or three hundred cases of food.

Then they gotta load trucks.

Everything we do affects everything.

You gotta make sure it goes on the pallet correctly.

You gotta make sure it gets shipped out correctly.

You gotta make sure all this stuff stays at the right temperature.

Because remember, you got the freezer and the cooler.

It even comes down to wrapping a pallet.

If you don’t wrap this pallet properly and it goes on the truck, this whole pallet can fall over, and now we got people that’s not getting food.

This effort comes from the heart. It really does.

Ed

For us, the job is finished when that last truck gets loaded.

When that last pallet gets put away, then we’re done.

Elizabeth 

But at the end of the night, I know that our work helped feed somebody.

Ed 

And we all pitched in.

We all gave it our all.

We all got it done.

Let’s go home.

Let’s relax.

We continue tomorrow.