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CITY
HARVEST |
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City Harvest is one of my favorite charitable organizations, for
its existence is testimony to brotherly love that exists in a city and
culture that runs at such a speed that the most basic needs of many of
our brothers and sisters are automatically ignored.
City Harvest is the product of common sense. In 1981 Helen verDuin
Palit, a soup kitchen worker, noticed that neighboring restaurants
were wasting good food every day. Seeing an opportunity to bolster the
food supply at the soup kitchen, she gathered volunteers and borrowed cars
and vans to transport the food from where it was not needed to where it
was needed very much. And City Harvest was born.
City Harvest now distributes more than 100
million pounds of food to a network of more
than 800 emergency food programs throughout New York City.
They get this food from all segments of the food industry – restaurants,
manufacturers, wholesalers, greenmarkets, hotels, corporate
cafeterias, grocery stores and farms.
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Consider
some incredible but true facts:
1.6 million New Yorkers will turn to soup kitchens or
food pantries this year for their meals including 500,000
children and 300,000 elderly.
32% must choose between food or utilities and heat.
26% must choose between food and rent.
27% must choose between food and medicine or medical
care. And, no surprise ...
31% are in poor health. |
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With
a fleet of 18 trucks (manned by a dedicated and intensely
loyal staff) and volunteers on foot, they now deliver an
average of 53,000 pounds of food daily – 19.5 million
pounds this year to more than 260,000 hungry New Yorkers
every week.
Think of the miracle of achievement manifested by one woman’s sensitivity
and practical concern! This is the brilliance and humanity of philanthropy.
Twenty-four years after its founding, City Harvest’s common-sense,
cost-effective approach remains unchanged. By working efficiently they
help the greatest number of people possible. Picking up and delivering
food the same day keeps costs down. Currently, their cost to deliver a
pound of food is just 26 cents! A smart, simple solution to ending hunger
in New York City.
The problem of sufficient food for a daily diet is growing, not lessening.
When City Harvest started there were 30 community food programs in New
York City. Today there are 1100!
I became familiar with City Harvest through friends who’ve been volunteering
their time (and money) with the organization for years: Joy Ingham,
Topsy Taylor and Emilia Saint-Amand, Carol Atkinson and Heather
Mnuchin.
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Emilia
Saint-Amand, Joy Ingham, Joe Pantoliano,
Heather Mnuchin, Bill Hemmer, Topsy
Taylor, Carol Atkinson, and Julia Erickson
at last year's Practical Magic Ball
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Every springtime, they hold a dinner dance and raise several hundred thousand
dollars for the cause. The more they raise, the more trucks they can have
and the more staff they can hire to gather the food and deliver it. They
call their event the City Harvest Practical Magic Ball and despite their
valiant efforts and ability to draw “names” to honor and attend,
fund-raising for feeding the hungry is an uphill battle.
These
girls have wracked their brains every year looking for the
right personalities and dynamics to grow City Harvest and
take advantage of its excellent reputation and record of
achievement. In the past few years, they’ve enlisted
the assistance and support of a number of prominent citizens
and celebrities including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
Glenn Close, Harrison Ford, Calvin Trillin, Bill Hemmer from
CNN. This year, they hit a home run with the enthusiastic
support of Susan and Gary Rosenbach. They
honored an organization called The Square Feet to Square
Meals Committee – a group which created and developed
a real estate-industry fundraising campaign just for City
Harvest.
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Cynthia
Nixon
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At
this year’s 11th annual Practical Magic Ball, hosted
by Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon,
with donations, table sales and auction, they raised a record
$1.1 million thanks to City Harvest’s new friends and
the stick-to-it-iveness of the organization’s longtime
supporters.
Five years ago the Starr Foundation (which
contributes to City Harvest) did a study which showed that
a family of two adults and two children in the Bronx needed
to earn $11.38 an hour to feed themselves daily (and take
care of their other basic living expenses). In Kings County
(Brooklyn) that figure is $16 an hour. In Upper Manhattan,
it’s $22 an hour. Minimum wage is still $5.50. Most
jobs for people who are on welfare don’t get much
higher than $8 an hour.
That is how it happens that in order to eat, other necessities have to
be forsaken – be it rent, heat, electricity or all of the above.
And many of those million and a half New Yorkers in need are children,
or elderly who have no chance of making a financial difference. City Harvest
saves lives EVERY DAY. As Florence Davis of the Starr
Foundation pointed out at last year’s benefit gala, it’s impossible
for people – meaning any of us – to rescue themselves if they
don’t have basic subsistence to begin with.
A good many of us are fortunate enough to be living outside that realm
of lack and loss. Many of us who’ve experienced it at one time in
our lives even forget what it’s like once we’ve escaped it.
It’s time to remind, to remember and to give. Give back. City Harvest
can help us do that.
www.cityharvest.org |
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Arthur
Bacall, Sue Marks, and Timothy White
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Ellie
Manko Libby, Melissa Siegel, Susan Harte, and Sloane Rhulen
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L.
to r.: ; Susan Rosenbach and Gary Rosenbach; Eric
Ripert and Tracy Nieporent; Cynthia Nixon.
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Pamela
Kaufmann, Linda Slotnick Petrone, Heather Mnuchin, Susan
Rosenbach, and Sharon Gellman
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Richard
Brierley
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Jesus
Ortiz and Cynthia Vasquez
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Pamela
Kaufmann, Gary Rosenbach, Susan Rosenbach, Linda Slotnick
Petrone, Jesus Ortiz, and Sharon Gellman
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Susan
Harte being dipped
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Sandra
Ripert, Eric Ripert, Maguy Le Coze, and Florian Bellanger
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