An Uncommon Solution to Hunger
Almost everyone who lives in New York City has experienced a traumatic trip to the grocery store. Crowds of locals and tourists alike, all pushing together, while trying to find the person holding the “end of line forms here” sign. It’s enough to make anyone have a nervous breakdown.
The folks at New York Common Pantry (formerly known as Yorkville Common Pantry) have found a way to remove some of the stress when grocery shopping for the folks who rely on the pantry for emergency food. By integrating technology into the process, NYCP is more efficient and therefore helps more of our neighbors in need. Last week we spent the day helping staff and volunteers at NYCP fulfill pantry orders, package food and serve hot meals to more than 220 individuals. This is an average day for the pantry.
Every week, Wednesday through Saturday, NYCP helps thousands of individuals and families (known as pantry members) choose diverse and nutritionally balanced groceries. After registering for the program, pantry members can order their food in advance through NYCP’s website or on-site by using wireless touch-screen tablets with the help of a volunteer. As soon as the order is submitted, volunteers begin packing each bag accordingly and by the time the member heads up to the pantry, the bags are ready to go.
The amount of food that members can order is based on family size and the items listed on the screen are only those currently in stock. By synching their inventory and ordering systems, NYCP ensures that members get food they like and nothing is wasted. Not only does this system improve the overall experience for their members, but it also allows NYCP staff to track and monitor the people coming in the door and the food going out.
In 2012, NYCP served nearly two million meals to 8,000 families and hot meals to more than 10,000 kitchen guests. Through Single Stop services, NYCP helped connect poor families to nearly $2 million in benefits beyond food.
To learn more about volunteering with NYCP, please visit their website: http://www.nycommonpantry.org/volunteer.html
Honored to have grads from #rhfunded schools with us at the #RHbenefit!!
700,000 New Yorkers have Diabetes—almost a third don’t know they have it.
New data from the city Department Of Health indicates that diabetes rates have risen over the past 20 years. Specifically, since 1993 diabetes has increased among adult New Yorkers by 150 percent, from 4.2 percent of adults in 1993 to 10.5 percent in 2011.
The report also finds that diabetes disproportionately affects the city’s high-poverty communities, with the highest rates among Hispanic, black and South Asian New Yorkers.
Just last week, Robin Hood’s Board of Directors approved a grant to City Health Works! a start-up organization that is working to tackle the growing presence of diabetes and obesity in New York’s low-income communities. Incubated at Columbia Business School and the Earth Institute at Columbia University during 2012, City Health Works! is an innovative program that trains community health workers to implement an intensive lifestyle intervention for at risk individuals.
Their specific program has been shown to be effective in lowering weight and reducing the incidence of diabetes in adults through numerous studies. Robin Hood is particularly excited about this grant because we believe City Health Works! has the potential to address the current lack of scalable models that effectively address these health issues. Because of this, we are confident that our recent investment will have a large impact over time on our city’s health. Learn more about this exciting program here.
Last week, Robin Hood was honored to receive the “Anne Vanderbilt Award for Achievement” from one of our community partners, Partnership with Children at their annual benefit gala.
Partnership with Children’s mission is to initiate and support educational enrichment and the transformation of schools. They bring Masters-level social workers into underserved public schools to provide counseling and classroom interventions for students are at risk of academic failure and dropping out. Robin Hood began funding Partnership with Children for what it could do in the aftermath of September 11th. Since then, we’ve continued their funding because their special blend of social work, in-class work and therapy helps students thrive.
The award was accepted by Emary Aronson, Robin Hood’s Managing Director of Education and the Relief Fund, on the behalf of Robin Hood. Upon accepting Emary stated “At Robin Hood we always speak about the privilege of getting to do the work we do and the reason it is a privilege is because we can engage with organizations like Partnership with Children. We are personally honored to have worked with Partnership for the last 12 years and know that the children of our city are better for your being in their schools.”
The award is named for Anne Vanderbilt, who was one of the founders of “Big Sisters” in 1908, which evolved into Partnership with Children. Established in 2004, the award recognizes individuals who’ve made significant contributions to the education and well being of young people throughout New York City. Among those who have received the award in past years are representatives from Citigroup Inc., Bank of America, GE and Joel L. Klein, former Chancellor of New York City Schools. We are certainly in good company!
We thank Partnership for Children for this honor. And for the many children who you have helped but who cannot yet comprehend what you have done for them or do not have the vocabulary to express their gratitude, we say thank you from them as well.
Poor New Yorkers aren’t just food-deprived. Many are facing multiple other challenges that are negatively impacting their lives.
On Wednesday, we spent the morning at West Side Campaign Against Hunger (WSCAH) and had the opportunity to get to know a few of our struggling neighbors. People like Ana, an aging grandmother who is caring for her son and his newborn infant, and Leta, a single mother who is helping her son pay his community college loans, but recently found herself unemployed due to a medical emergency. We also met Jessina, a 19 year-old high school graduate struggling to find a job and in desperate need of medical insurance to see a primary care doctor. And, many young parents who missed a rent payment and are now are evicted from their rent stabilized apartment.
WSCAH is not just providing individuals and families with healthy foods, they are attacking poverty by providing free legal, financial, medical and benefits counseling to help with these issues. They do this by partnering with other Robin Hood-funded organizations like Neighborhood Trust, Single Stop, the Children’s Aid Society and Urban Justice.
WSCAH boasts the city’s original, and, perhaps most successful, customer choice pantry with a strong integrated social services component. WSCAH screens all families for benefits before they pick up groceries at the pantry, an important intake routine that other pantries around the city are striving to replicate.
What brought these families into the church basement was food, but because of the smart and innovative partnerships, they leave with so much more.
Excited to help open the new PHI office in the Bronx. This #RHfunded org trains people for jobs as in-home health care aides.
Since 2003, Robin Hood has been investing in programs to encourage entrepreneurship among low-income populations. Currently, we invest around $1.4 million annually to the two leading microfinance organizations in the country – Accion USA and Grameen America – to provide microloans to approximately 6,500 small-business owners and entrepreneurs in New York City.
Today, we had the opportunity to visit Accion and learn about the loan application process from one of their loan officers.
Accion is different from a bank or credit union in that it empowers low-to-moderate income business owners by offering access to capital and financial education that they otherwise would not have. These small business owners, many without a proven track record in business or limited or poor credit history, would be considered ineligible for a loan from a bank. Accion provides these individuals business loans ranging from $500 up to $50,000 along with crucial financial education to help them succeed. And crucially, by doing so, Accion steers these individuals away from predatory lenders that charge exorbitant interest rates or fees for access to capital.
Accion has seen many success stories across NYC, from a woman who started a beauty school and salon in Queens, to a man who leveraged his 15 years of work with the second largest commercial cleaning franchise in the world to start his own firm that serves clients in Brooklyn and Queens. Recently, with funding from Robin Hood’s Relief Fund, Accion has been making loans to small businesses negatively impacted by Hurricane Sandy. By offering low interest rates of 4.99% along with small grants, these business owners have been able to get back on their feet and provide services that their communities rely on. One such entrepreneur, a neighborhood bodega owner in Brooklyn, lost his inventory when the flood waters filled his store. With his loan from Accion, he was able to stock his shelves, get his store back up and running, and serve a community torn apart by the Hurricane.
We are proud to partner with Accion and the entrepreneurs who are creating better opportunities for themselves, their families and their communities.
The last regularly scheduled Sandy Relief committee meeting is taking place now. Over $70 million in donations to the Relief fund has been allocated to 400 groups in the tri-state area. Thank you to all those who gave including donors to the 12-12-12 Concert to benefit Hurricane Sandy victims.
Pastor Edwin Malave had invested his life savings into starting a Christian bookstore and cafe at the front of his church. Sandy hit a month before he was supposed to open. With flood waters reaching five feet, all the appliances and equipment he had purchased were destroyed. Instead of abandoning the space altogether, Pastor Malave turned the would-be-cafe into a food pantry, and is now distributing donated foods to 200 families every day.
A grant from Robin Hood covers Pastor Malave’s costs for three months. He’s building new relationships with foundations, so the food pantry can become a permanent resource for families in Coney Island.
The Workers Justice Project (WJP) helps immigrant day laborers find jobs, cleaning and rebuilding all along the coastline devastated by Hurricane Sandy.
The storm ripped WJP’s own office – a small, one-room structure – from its foundation. With Robin Hood funding, though, WJP now has an expanded and more resilient home base. From here, they can better reach out to laborers across Brooklyn, train them on workplace hazards and wage laws, provide them protective equipment, and connect them to employers and families rebuilding in New York and Long Island.
