City Harvest’s Advocacy Awards 2022

City Harvest’s advocacy team supports a citywide network of nearly 400 food pantry and soup kitchen leaders in advocating against hunger and its root causes.

As City Harvest marks our 40th year feeding New Yorkers in need, millions of our fellow New Yorkers continue to struggle with rising costs of necessities like food, gas, and rent.  Even before the pandemic, 2.4 million New Yorkers were struggling to make ends meet.

To meet this need, this year City Harvest will rescue and deliver more than 75 million pounds of food for New Yorkers in need—more than 20% higher than pre-pandemic levels.

But we can’t do it alone.

City Harvest works with hundreds of dedicated leaders at food pantries and soup kitchens across the city to advocate a more equitable food system—together.

The City Harvest Advocacy Awards recognize these exceptional frontline leaders for their advocacy contributions to fighting hunger in New York City.

Here are a few recent highlights of our collective advocacy efforts:

• Helped bring back the historic White House Conference on Hunger. In partnership with anti-hunger organizations across the country, our food pantry partners advocated for the reinstatement of the White House Conference on Hunger, Health, and Nutrition—a historic conference that led to the creation of the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program over 50 years ago. In May 2022, the Biden-Harris administration responded to these efforts by announcing that this important conference will return for the first time in over 50 years. We look forward to participating in the conference, which is now scheduled for September 2022 with the stated goal of ending hunger by 2030.

• Advocated for policies that address food insecurity and its root causes. Collectively, our food pantry partners sent more than 1,000 letters to their local, state, and federal representatives in support of policies that would address food insecurity and its root causes, including extending the Child Tax Credit, applying a racial equity lens to the 2023 Farm Bill, supporting the City Harvest Policy Platform priorities, and more.

• Met with local, state, and federal representatives to uplift the voices of New Yorkers facing food insecurity. Nearly 50 of our food pantry partners met with their local, state, and federal representatives to uplift the voices of those facing food insecurity and advocate for policies that address food insecurity and its root causes.

• Led and attended workshops to help build the advocacy capacity of food pantry organizations and their clients. Some of this year’s workshops included Advocating for Equitable Public Transportation and Food Security, Centering Racial Equity in the American Families Plan, Meeting with Your Elected Officials, City Harvest Policy Platform Priorities, and more.

We are so proud to recognize the following organizations for their advocacy contributions to fighting hunger across New York City and beyond: