by Davinia Buckley

I was lucky enough to join the Food Bank For New York City team this January, starting the new year off on a....well, on an orange note. Similar to any newcomer, I am excited, curious, a little nervous — but most of all eager to learn. First and foremost, I have learned that the Food Bank and the color orange are essentially synonymous, and I had the chance to experience the enormous effect this color can have on an entire city at the NYC Goes Orange Appreciation Event.

Food Bank board member Mario Batali raising a toast at our 2010 NYC Goes Orange Appreciation Event

The Food Bank held this event in February to thank the more than 300 partner organizations that helped produce another successful NYC Goes Orange — an annual, citywide campaign to spread orange, the color of hunger awareness, throughout New York City in an effort to raise meals for the more than 1 In 5 New Yorkers who rely on the Food Bank to eat.

The NYC Goes Orange Appreciation Event did not fall short of continuing this “Go Orange” trend. The event was held at Vento Restaurant, where by sheer coincidence the curtains and décor were orange, setting a rather appropriate and festive mood. Yet, the orange-spotting did not stop there, as it was not long before Food Bank board member Mario Batali himself arrived sporting his signature orange crocs.

Later in the evening, Batali, joined by Food Bank President and CEO Lucy Cabrera, toasted our partners’ hard work raising food, funds and public awareness for New Yorkers in need.

To make a long story (told well by our campaign recap video) short, the campaign was a success. Furthermore, judging by the positive atmosphere and smiling faces, so was the event, which was made possible by Southern Wine and Spirits, Stella Artois and Vanguard Direct. Needless to say, I left feeling as though I had “Gone Orange.”

Food Bank For New York City continually works to raise awareness and support for hunger relief through media outreach and information sharing. Here are highlights of the recent stories that have featured the Food Bank:

NY1, “Food Bank Offers Free Tax Help As Uncle Sam Offers Sizable Tax Credit”
With tax season officially in full swing, the Food Bank For New York City, elected official and government agencies join forces to make sure New Yorkers get back every penny they deserve…read more [Includes VIDEO]

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “Free Tax Site Helps Brooklynites File for EITC Credits”
The Food Bank partners with the Brooklyn Community Foundation and Capital One Bank to provide tax assistance for the working poor in northern Brooklyn as part of our Tax Assistance Program...read more

The Huffington Post, “My 2010 Wish List for NYC”
Gordon Campbell, President and CEO of United Way NYC, brings in the New Year with a loud cheer and his recommendations of achievable goals for 2010 that will help low-income New Yorkers…read more

The Economist, Letter to the Editor
Food Bank For New York City President and CEO Lucy Cabrera responds to “The Big Apple Is Hungry,” published in January 2010 by The Economist…read more

The Packer, “Produce Industry Contributes Heavily to Feeding New York’s Hungry”
The Packer — the leading source of news for the fresh fruit and vegetable industry — explores the Food Bank’s food distribution efforts, which provided more than 13 million pounds of fresh produce for New Yorkers in need in fiscal year 2009…read more

by John Leggio

Former President Bill Clinton speaking at the Food Bank's 2009 Can-Do Awards Dinner; photo by Tran Dinh

Here at the Food Bank, we work to improve child nutrition because we know kids’ food choices can have lifelong health effects. Last week, at a press conference in Harlem, former President Bill Clinton said he learned that lesson the hard way.

After surgery for blocked arteries at NY Presbyterian-Columbia University Medical Center, President Clinton "weighed in" on the childhood obesity epidemic while speaking for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

“The root cause of this was habits that I acquired in my childhood,” Mr. Clinton, who also had a quadruple bypass operation in 2004, said.

Mr. Clinton (who spoke at our 2009 Can-Do Awards Dinner) also gave a shout-out to First Lady Michelle Obama for her “Let’s Move” campaign, which will tackle the obesity epidemic by helping families make healthy food choices, improving the quality of school food, encouraging exercise and increasing food access.

We’re working to meet similar goals through programs like CookShop, which encourages the development of healthy diets among New York City students and their families, as well as community outreach and advocacy on issues like universal school meals.

With work like ours — and similar efforts from a dynamic duo like the former president and the current first lady — maybe we can protect more children from the outcomes of poor nutrition.

Purim this year is Sunday, February 28. In the Bible, The Book of Esther tells a fantastical story about a Jewish girl whose grace won the beauty contest to be the new queen. Her charm also helped save the Jewish people throughout the Persian Empire from an evil minister named Haman (Boooo!!!).

Queen Esther and her cousin Mordechai then deliver the message that the only way to really be happy is if everyone in society is happy. This was true when a minority in the kingdom was being oppressed; it is also true when there is hunger in the community.

They declared that the holiday is celebrated by 1) giving charity to two people (enough money to buy a nice meal), 2) giving a food basket to a friend, 3) having a festive meal and 4) retelling the story. So please use the SHARE button below to Digg, tweet or use any social media to share this post, have a Happy Purim and please donate here.

by Daniel Buckley

If you read this blog regularly, you already know who Kate Hindin is. But for those of you who don’t: After working as the Food Bank For New York City’s Business Partnerships Manager for the past year and a half — over which time she was an active contributor to Bank on It — Kate Hindin has moved back home to California.

Kate’s dedication to building partnerships that have helped to fight hunger in New York City has come through clearly in her blog posts. So, illustrating the importance of these partnerships and giving examples of some of the ways that you or the place where you work can help make a difference, here is a selection of her posts — and, Kate Hindin, this is your life:

	Sweet Charity – parts 1 & 2 A two-part interview with one of the Food Bank’s favorite bakeries: Ivy Bakery in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
	An Alternative Spring Break From among an onslaught of teens, tweens and families visiting New York City over spring break, a group of high school students from Erie, PA use their time off to help New Yorkers in need at our Community Kitchen
	Bring on the Bake Sales A Food Bank partner holds a bake-sale contest to benefit the Food Bank — and invites Kate Hindin to sample the entries as a judge.
	Nathan’s Famous on the Fourth of July The world’s most well-known competitive eating contest — featuring The Frankster, a dancing Uncle Sam and a lot of hot dogs — benefits the Food Bank.

by Ashley Goforth

Congressman Charles Rangel shows his support for strong student leadership as he chats with students trained as tax preparers from Frederick Douglass Academy and Rice High School.

Our free tax services can constitute a significant step from food poverty toward self-sufficiency.

Food Bank Board Chair Rev. Henry Belin hosted our special guest speakers at the kickoff event and emphasized the importance of community support for the program.

For the Food Bank, February means tax assistance is in high gear and heading full speed into the April 15 tax deadline. At the start of the month, the Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem hosted a press conference to kick of the tax season and to remind New York City residents that many of them may be eligible for free tax-return preparation and electronic filing at 14 sites citywide operated by the Food Bank’s Tax Assistance Program and online through the IRS and New York State Free File Alliance programs. On hand to discuss the merits of the program was Congressman Charles Rangel; IRS Commissioner Douglas Schulman; NYC Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz; and Human Resources Administration Commissioner Robert Doar; Ed Black, President and CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA); and Brad Smith, President and CEO of Intuit Inc.

Then, on February 18, the Food Bank, Capital One Bank and the Brooklyn Community Foundation joined forces to bring attention to the program at the Fulton Street Capital One, where our program provides tax assistance for the northern Brooklyn community. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz joined Fran Freedman, LMSW, Deputy Commissioner, External Affairs  NYC Department of Consumer Affairs; our Vice President of Agency Resources & Benefit Access Carlos Rodriguez and Capital One’s Brooklyn Market President B.J. Duffy to extol the benefits of free tax assistance.

The Food Bank’s Tax Assistance Program provides low-income New Yorkers with free tax preparation services as well as information on how to access the various credits they are entitled to – including the Earned Income Tax Credit , a key piece of the public safety net for the working poor. One of the largest programs of its type in the country, the Food Bank's Tax Assistance Program has completed up to 50,000 tax returns for low- to moderate-income New Yorkers annually — helping to provide as much as $100 million in tax refunds.

If you think you may be eligible for EITC, use Intuit’s free EITC calculator today. For a listing of the Food Bank’s Tax Assistance Program sites, click here.

by Brian Pham

This January and February, the Food Bank held volunteer trainings for CookShop, our series of nutrition and health education programs for adults as well as elementary and high school students. We were able to successfully train more than 200 volunteers in three trainings – and that’s almost four times the number of volunteers we had last year!

by Daniel Buckley

Every year, the Food Bank For New York City convenes our Annual Agency Conference — the largest gathering of our city’s hunger relief community — for workshops, a panel discussion, keynote speeches and more to strengthen our city’s response to hunger.

In addition to members of our food program network and other hunger-relief organizations throughout the five boroughs, leading legislators, policy makers and academics often attend, adding their voice and support to the struggle to end hunger. At this year’s conference – January 12, 2010 – the Food Bank was honored to provide a forum for NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer to present their views and goals on subjects ranging from food stamps to food production.

While we face drastic cuts to emergency food proposed by New York City and State, the appearance of four of our city’s most prominent leaders at the Food Bank’s conference shows that there is strong awareness and support of the needs of low-income New Yorkers in city government.

Their words give us hope for the future of our city – please take a moment to hear them for yourself:

by Carly Rothman

As we blogged earlier in the month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has threatened to eliminate funding for the city’s Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) in response to proposed cuts in overall state funding — a move that would slash a critical safety net for those who can’t afford to eat.

Now the Food Bank For New York City is taking action to help preserve emergency food assistance for New York City’s most vulnerable residents.

Our advocacy page contains up-to-date information on ways members of the public can help protect this vital program, including contact information for key elected officials and talking points people can use to help convince them that cutting funding for emergency food is the wrong way to plug the city’s budget gap.

For example, EFAP represents just 0.017 percent of the city budget — a tiny amount that supports hundreds of local food pantries and soup kitchens.

And even with EFAP funding, almost half the city's soup kitchens and food pantries had to turn hungry people away last year. With local unemployment now over 10 percent, the number of people needing help is expected to grow.

What are your reasons for protecting EFAP? Share your thoughts and help spread the word!
 

by John Leggio

Exciting news from CookShop for Adults: we’ve revamped our program!

Part of the Food Bank’s suite of nutrition and health education programs, CookShop for Adults now aims to serve parents and guardians of the children who participate in CookShop Classroom. The new-and-improved course helps prepare adults with the information and resources they need to take the lessons their children learn at school and continue them right at their own kitchen tables.

The program works like this: participants meet for in-school workshops that complement the kids’ lessons on nutrition, food production and cooking. During the workshops, the adults learn healthy recipes, as well as nutrition-related topics including portion control, added sugars, food storage, reading food labels and making food substitutions.

In this way, we train participants to become nutrition educators for their loved ones, and provide them with the information and materials they need to conduct in-home workshops for their families.

When adults and kids are both excited about nutritious food and its benefits, the whole family will make a stronger commitment to healthy choices.

The Food Bank plans to feature CookShop for Adults participants here on Bank on It to give you a first-hand take of the effect of our new model…so stay tuned!