Advocate
We believe that all New Yorkers should have equal access to healthy, affordable food.
City Harvest partners with advocates, community-based organizations, and public officials across the city, state, and country to advocate for policies that address hunger and its root causes.
Our work is guided by our policy platform, and we envision a future wherein all New Yorkers have the food that they need to feed themselves and their families.
Make Your Voice Heard
Add Your Name to Our Policy Platform
We advocate for policies that fight hunger, decrease the need for emergency food, and shorten pantry lines. Add your name to our policy platform to help fight hunger and its root causes.
Tell State Reps to Fund Hunger Relief
Sign the petition to tell your State Representatives to fund hunger relief by increasing SNAP, funding food pantries, and expanding tax credits for working families.
Sign the Next Shift Pledge
Share your support for the Next Shift campaign’s commitment to building a just food system that ensures everyone’s human right to nutritious food and dignity.
In the last year, our Policy and Advocacy team:
Our Policy Platform
#1: Address the Root Causes of Hunger
Advocate for policies that end hunger by addressing its root causes and confronting systemic inequities that disproportionately impact food insecure communities.
#2: Strengthen Government Programs
Strengthen and expand eligibility for income-based government benefit programs so that all New Yorkers can feed themselves and their families, ensuring that benefits reflect the true cost of living.
#3: Bolster NYC’s Charitable Food Network
Ensure that New York City’s food pantry, soup kitchen, and shelter networks have the resources to provide access to culturally desirable and religiously required (including Halal and Kosher) to all food insecure New Yorkers.
#4: Create an Equitable and Sustainable Food System
Advocate for a food system that benefits workers, growers, and businesses that value their workforce, the environment, health and nutrition, and the local economy.
Our Advocacy Work
City Harvest Advocacy Awards
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.
Joint Statement in Response to 3 Million New Yorkers Losing Emergency Food Benefits on March 1, 2023
Read the joint statement from City Harvest, Food Bank For New York City, and United Way of New York City. Acting together, we can help make sure fewer New Yorkers go hungry.
Joint Statement in Response to the 2024 NYC Executive Budget
The FY24 NYC budget agreement signed by Mayor Adams included needed investments in anti-hunger efforts.