Join Staten Island Hunger Task Force Tomorrow Morning For “Food For All” Meeting

Food For All Meeting Tomorrow Morning At 11AM – Learn About What SI Hunger Task Force Is Doing In The Community

To join the Zoom meeting, apologies as there is no link:

Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID 912-942-6776

PW 957639

Here are some ways you can help: by donating food, by volunteering, by donating items SNAP does not provide, and by giving money to local food pantries. More details below on individual and corporate donations.

How to Donate Food
Individuals:

Food donations are covered under the federal and NY state Good Samaritan laws.

To donate food, find a pantry or soup kitchen near you and make an appointment to drop food off. Some pantries don’t have refrigeration or freezers, so make sure they can accept what you want to bring.

In season, many pantries will accept fruits and vegetables from your garden, although some won’t be able to store fragile fruits and vegetables (for example, raspberries or baby lettuce) for more than a day. Try to pick and deliver the same day that the pantry or soup kitchen is open. For more information about garden donations, see the AmpleHarvest.Org website.

Keep in mind that financial donations are helpful since emergency food providers (pantries and soup kitchens) can buy food at steep discounts and by doing so, fill in gaps in the pantries. For example, they may have shelves of powdered mashed potatoes but no tuna fish or other proteins.

Growing Food to Donate

Community Gardens: Community gardens and backyard gardens could be, and in some cases already are, a summer and fall source of fresh fruit and vegetables for Staten Island pantries. Resources:

• GrowNYC has “Grow to Learn” (http://www.growtolearn.org/) programs for the schools.
• For information about urban farming, see the Black Urban Gardeners’ website, https://www.blackurbangrowers.org/.
• Plant a Row for the Hungry offers advice: https://gardencomm.org/PAR.
• NYC Parks Green Thumb initiative provides land and materials. See https://greenthumb.nycgovparks.org/.
• Gardens can get small grants from http://ioby.org and http://kickstarter.com (for example, see http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gardensofgratitude/100-garden-challenge-planting-100-edible-gardens?ref=live).
• AmpleHarvest.Org connects home gardeners with local pantries.

To learn more about other ways you can help Staten Island Hunger Task Force, click here

Banner Image: Child participating in a community garden. Image Credit – Filip Urban

SI Hunger Task Force

The SI Hunger Task Force is not a pantry. Instead, we connect community members to pantries and pantries to community and government resources.