Donate Dollars Instead of Cans this Holiday Season

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger has kicked off our virtual holiday food drive with the “Donate Dollars Instead of Cans” Campaign. This holiday season, your support is especially important as recently released data shows that 1 in 4 NYC children live in food insecure households. Click here to read the special holiday appeal letter from Joel.

Will you help us reach our goal by making a gift to the Coalition this holiday season?

Why not cans?

During the holidays, the local news is full of stories of food drives and images of stacked canned goods collected in an effort to help feed hungry New Yorkers. Canned food drives may help bring attention to food shortages and local hunger issues, but in terms of impact, a dollar goes a lot farther than a can of food.

Wholesale and bulk buying enables soup kitchens, food pantries and food banks to purchase food for their guests at deeply discounted rates. As Pastor Ann from Greenpoint Reformed Church's Food Pantry said here, "At the Food Bank, $50 could buy 200 boxes of cereal as opposed to the perhaps 10 that donors to food drives could get for that much." Many food pantries also have trouble integrating donated food items into their current stock. Often, there is not a large enough volume of any one item to ensure that families are getting fair and equal shares of the food they need.

We hope you will consider donating to the extraordinarily effective work of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, which help families obtain food stamps benefits, sponsors fresh produce distribution programs (CSAs) in low-income neighborhoods, provides capacity-building technical assistance to food pantries and soup kitchens, and advocates for governmental and economic policies that fight hunger and poverty at their root causes.

Instead of, or in addition to donating cans this year, why not maximize your impact in ending hunger by participating in a virtual food drive that better leverages your dollar? Click here to make a donation. Every donation – regardless of the quantity – helps.

Unable to donate but still want to help?

There are many other effective ways to assist food pantries and soup kitchens this season. Here are a few alternatives to consider:

• Get involved in advocacy efforts to increase and streamline food stamp benefits, provide public school students with free meals, and increase state and federal funding for emergency food programs. By supporting NYCCAH, you can advance these advocacy efforts which work to improve food access for all New Yorkers.
• Collect funds for your local soup kitchen or food pantry. If your organization is interested in developing a long-term relationship with an emergency food program, consider a funding drive rather than a food drive. Search NYCCAH’s Hunger Maps by keyword, borough or zip code to find an emergency food program near you.
• Tell your friends! Help spread the word about this campaign and our efforts to end hunger in New York City by posting this URL – www.nyccah.org/donate - into your Facebook, Twitter or Google + pages or by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.

What about volunteering?

Fortunately for hungry New Yorkers, Thanksgiving & Christmas Day are the most sought after days to serve, so volunteer spots are filled weeks – and even months - in advance. As Executive Director Joel Berg told WNYC last year, “The hard truth is, that virtually every soup kitchen, and food pantry and holiday feeding program in New York has far, far, far more people on those two days out of the year than they could ever possibly use.” Edible Brooklyn also covered this topic here. Other ways to volunteer:

• Volunteer on the other 363 days. We encourage you to volunteer after or before the holidays when many agencies are severely under-assisted. Visit our Volunteer Matching System to locate opportunities year-round.
• Get involved in our 9th Annual MLK jr. Anti-Hunger Serve-a-Thon. Help plan, promote, lead a team, or volunteer individually at our MLK Jr. Day Serve-A-Thon this January. Email volunteer@nyccah.org if you're interested.
• Donate your professional skills. The Coalition believes that the volunteer work with the greatest impact is skills-based volunteer projects. If you have skills in accounting, for example, you can help set up a soup kitchen’s first budget; if you have skills in database development, you can help install a client-tracking system; if you have skills in marketing, web design or graphic design, you can help an organization promote its services to hungry community members. To learn more about skills-based volunteering, click here. If you’d like to donate your skills, please email volunteer@nyccah.org.
  
  

  Above All Else...

  Thanks so much for your support and sharing in our passion to help ensure economic and food self-sufficiency for all Americans. Happy Holidays!