NEW YORK – On Thursday, Food Bank For New York City will host a pop-up food pantry at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to distribute fresh produce and shelf-stable items to approximately 500 of New York’s families in need. The distribution will also include donations of frozen meals from Tiller & Hatch, and plant-based protein from Impossible Foods.
Musicians from the New York Philharmonic, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra and MET Orchestra Musicians will be on-site to provide music for visitors to enjoy while they wait in line. Thursday’s event will be the second time the cultural center has hosted a mobile food pantry with Food Bank.
SNAP resources will be on-site in addition to NYC Census 2020, who will have enumerators on hand to assist and encourage attendees to complete the 2020 Census if they have not already done so. Voter registration cards will also be available on-site for attendees who need to register.
Before the pandemic, 12.2% of Manhattan residents and 14.6% of children in the Manhattan were food insecure. This has worsened significantly as Manhattan now has a 15.9% unemployment rate, up from 3.7% last year. Additionally, 13% of food pantries and soup kitchens in the Manhattan have closed since the onset of the pandemic.
This distribution is one in a series of pop-up pantries occurring throughout the weeks ahead as part of Hunger Action Month, with the generous support of Seamless and Starbucks. This September, Food Bank is partnering with brands, advocates, influencers, and New Yorkers in the fight to end hunger. Other pop-up locations this month include Barclays Center, Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, New York Hall of Science and Yankee Stadium.
With the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic putting many people out of work and rapidly increasing the need for assistance, the demand on the emergency food network has surged. Food Bank For New York City reports that the vast majority of soup kitchens and food pantries have been serving more New Yorkers during the pandemic than they were previously: many agencies have seen their number of visitors double. Even before COVID-19, the demand for food was already high: nearly 1.2 million New Yorkers were already food insecure.
WHO:
Food Bank representatives
New York families
WHEN:
Thursday, September 24th
11 AM – 2 PM
WHERE:
Lincoln Center
Enter at 62nd Street between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues
New York, NY