MIDTOWN, MANHATTAN — On a June morning, New Yorkers hurried through Times Square with coffee in hand, weaving between commuters, tourists, and flashing billboards.
In the middle of it all, 400 Morgan Stanley volunteers formed assembly lines to pack of tuna, lentils, brown rice, vegetables, and pantry staples. Boxes moved steadily down the line as volunteers packed, sealed, stacked, and loaded meals destined for neighborhoods across New York City.
By day’s end, 4,000 pantry boxes containing 36,000 meals had been packed and were on their way to New Yorkers across the city.
The Crossroads of the City
Morgan Stanley once again transformed Times Square into one of New York City’s most visible reminders that hunger exists in every borough — even in one of the most prosperous cities in the world.
The activation kicked off Morgan Stanley’s annual Global Volunteer Month and marked more than 30 years of partnership with Food Bank For New York City.
The timing has never mattered more. Across the five boroughs, visits to food pantries are near record highs — and federal cuts to SNAP are expected to push that need to a breaking point.
“Rising costs of living and reduced relief funding have led many New Yorkers to turn to Food Bank For NYC for fresh food, household resources, and support programs,” said Jess Presedo, Senior Director of Corporate Engagement at Food Bank For NYC.
And for too many kids across the city, summer doesn’t just mean school is out — it means the breakfasts, lunches, and snacks they counted on all year are gone.
“Hundreds of thousands of people walk through Times Square on any given day,” said Joan Steinberg, Global Head of Philanthropy at Morgan Stanley. “This gives us a unique opportunity to bring visibility to an issue that often remains out of sight. It helps shift perceptions: hunger isn’t a distant issue – it’s happening here in our own communities.”
Since 2017, the Times Square activation alone has helped put food on the table for nearly 30,000 New York City households.
Following the Truck
This year, Food Bank For NYC followed the meals — and the volunteers — after they left Times Square.
The boxes packed that morning weren’t headed for storage. They were loaded onto trucks in real time and delivered through Food Bank For NYC’s network of more than 800 member agencies across the five boroughs — some landing on New Yorkers’ plates within hours.
Inside each box: a week of meals for a family stretching every dollar through a summer without school breakfasts and lunches.
And throughout June, Morgan Stanley volunteers kept showing up. At Food Bank For NYC’s Community Kitchen in West Harlem, where more than 100,000 free meals are served every month, volunteers supported older adult lunch service and community programming, helping serve hundreds of nutritious meals and supporting more than 1,100 households.
At Food Bank For NYC’s Hunts Point Distribution Center in the Bronx — inside the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the world’s largest food distribution center of its kind — volunteers repacked nearly 6,000 pounds of food across two warehouse shifts. Millions of pounds of food flow through the 90,000-square-foot facility every month.
“The Times Square event is a great introduction to food banking in New York City,” Steinberg said. “I’m also proud of our employees who keep coming back — to the warehouse, to Hunts Point, and to communities across the city — to help ensure New Yorkers have access to food and support.”
Showing Up Year After Year
“Our long-standing partnership means the world to our organization,” Presedo said. “When our neighbors face uncertainty, Morgan Stanley helps Food Bank For NYC provide security year after year.”
This June, that security looked like over 500 volunteers and 700 hours of service across Times Square, West Harlem, and Hunts Point. But for these families, that pantry box wasn’t just a box.
It was dinner on the table that night — helping to ease some of the uncertainty they face during the summer months.
“Every action taken by a volunteer, donor, or advocate makes a difference,” Presedo said. “You are the reason meals were packed for New York City families or an older adult was served a nutritious meal with a smile.
