In one of the richest cities in the world, nearly 1.6 million New Yorkers are facing hunger. And since June 2025, close to 120,000 of them have lost their SNAP benefits — not because they stopped needing help, but because new rules, confusion, and fear pushed them off the rolls. The cost lands on families, bodegas, and whole neighborhoods.

Food Bank For New York City is standing in the gap. This Hunger Action Month, you can too.

Give now and help us keep SNAP within reach for hardworking New Yorkers.

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Zanita Tisdale, Vice President of Agency and Organizational Impact:

New York City, one of the richest cities in the world and home to nearly 1.6 million hardworking New Yorkers facing hunger on every block and in every borough. Since 2020, New Yorkers have overcome challenge after challenge.

Hunger outlasted them all.

The emergency food crisis is still here, and it’s only getting worse. Hi. I’m Zanita, Vice President of Agency and Organizational Impact at Food Bank for New York City, our city’s largest hunger relief organization. Recent federal policy brought sweeping changes to SNAP, the program once known as food stamps, that puts nutritious food on tables across America. Since June 2025, nearly 120,000 New York City residents have lost access to their food benefits, driven by red tape, confusion, and fear with the greatest impact falling on local communities and their economies. Our emergency food network stands in the gap. For New Yorkers trying to keep a roof over their head and food in their stomachs, New Yorkers like Jo Ann.

Jo Ann:

Hello. Hello. The last ten days of the month, we’re down to, like, nothing in our refrigerator. I’m on public assistance.

I lost my job. I’ve always worked all my life. I, lost my job in 2020 and couldn’t find a job. Sent out over eight thousand applications.

I’ve been in HR for over twenty five years. And then they changed the rules for the work requirements. ABAWD came in. So I had to look for volunteer work, and I got into the SNAP call center.

Thank you for calling the food bank. How can I help you? I actually love doing it because I’ve always worked in HR. I’ve always wanted to work and help people in all sorts of matters, and I and I can connect with these people that are calling me because I get SNAP.

So I understand their their you know, I understand their frustration. I understand their sadness and discouragement. I understand how HRA works. Okay.

So I’m gonna I’m gonna ask you some information. I’m gonna need your name, first of all. If I can do a SNAP screening and I can help a person get their benefits by advising them how, you know, how to navigate the process, I am very happy doing that because, you know, everything is very expensive, but it is terrible that no one should be going hungry in this city. With so much money that that’s out there, no one should be suffering like this.

Nobody.

Zanita:

Jo Ann is not alone. She is one of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers on SNAP who must now meet new work requirements to keep their food benefits. And volunteering with Food Bank for New York City helps her to do just that.

Joanne feels fortunate. She has the safety net of SNAP and she can meet the new work rules, but many cannot. And it’s not just New Yorkers who are feeling the squeeze. Every SNAP dollar lost is a dollar lost at the register.

And for many local businesses, those dollars are the difference between staying open and closing for good.

Radhames:

New York without bodegas is not gonna be New York.

New Yorker:

I love my bodegas!

Radhames:

The bodegas, they have the big connection with the community. That we feeling the same thing the community feeling. My neighbor because that’s those my neighbor.

People who that I’m serving, that’s that’s my family. He treats everybody with a good heart. It’s a connection that we have that I like, I feel the same thing she felt because we come in for the same thing, for for for a family, for poor people, and we’re there sharing the the same situation they have.

That’s the way that’s the same thing I feel. Cutting the SNAP for the community is cutting a lot of other stuff is because those customers that are they used to go to the store, they are spending, let’s say, a hundred dollars. Now they’re gonna spend maybe fifty dollars. So that’s less income to the store. Then how we’re gonna pay the rent, how we’re gonna pay the electricity, and all the the the the expenses that we have in the store is is depending on how much we’re earning. If we would got cut off for over forty, fifty, sixty percent, of our gross sales, so then we’re not gonna be able to survive.

Zanita:

If you think this doesn’t affect you because you’re not on SNAP, listen to how this will affect the New York state budget.

Barbara:

My summary is that none of it is good for New York state or New York state residents. Right now, we’re predicting the federal cost shifts will result in about a 1.3 billion dollar increase in cost for New York State and New York State counties. And that breaks down into two components. Part of it is administration, and then the much larger cost is to actually fund a portion of the SNAP benefits.

So the feds have decided that the cost shift for any state, the percentage you pay is based on what is referred to as a payment error rate. And at the federal level, this is being touted as waste, fraud, and abuse in the system, which is absolutely not what the payment error rate is. What the payment error rate measures is really just it could be relatively small mistakes that are made either by case workers who are processing benefits or by households who may report a change in their household circumstances, but maybe a little bit later than they needed to. So they’re really, it’s not fraud, they’re administrative errors.

In addition to just the fact that’s a lot of money that New York State could invest in other services. The SNAP program was designed with the federal government paying the benefits. Again, that’s because the federal government’s budget doesn’t need to be balanced every year. It can grow during times of economic downturn, and then it can contract like the SNAP program does during positive economic times where there are fewer people who need help.

That’s not the case at the state level. You know, every year, New York State must balance its budget. So if the state has to contribute over billion dollars to supporting SNAP, it really reduces opportunities for how New York taxpayer dollars are used to deliver services in New York State.

Zanita:

This is heavy. We know. But we also know what this city can do together so that no one, not Jo Ann, not the bodega on your corner, not the family on your block has to carry the weight of hunger alone. Food alone won’t end hunger, but people will.

So here’s where you come in. Go to foodbanknyc.org and sign our petition. Call your representatives. As SNAP changes push more families to our pantry lines, it’s going to take all of us showing up for our city.

It takes a city to feed one, and that city is you.

Jo Ann worked in HR for over twenty-five years before losing her job in 2020. She sent out more than eight thousand applications and still couldn’t find work. When new rules required volunteer hours to keep her benefits, she found her way to Food Bank’s SNAP call center — and found purpose there too.

Every call she takes, she understands on a level most people can’t. She’s on public assistance herself; by the last ten days of the month, her own refrigerator is nearly empty. That’s exactly why she’s good at this work — she doesn’t just walk callers through the SNAP process, she recognizes their frustration, their discouragement, their exhaustion, because she’s lived it.

Jo Ann believes no one in this city should go hungry — not with the resources New York has. So she keeps showing up, one call at a time, helping people get what they need to eat.

Give today — because no one in this city should have to go hungry. Help Jo Ann keep answering the call.

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Jo Ann, Food Bank For NYC SNAP Call Center Volunteer:

Hello. Hello. The last ten days of the month, we’re down to, like, nothing in our refrigerator. I’m on public assistance.

I lost my job. I’ve always worked all my life. I, lost my job in twenty twenty and couldn’t find a job. Sent out over eight thousand applications.

I’ve been in HR for over twenty five years. And then they changed the rules for the work, requirements. ABOG came in. So I had to look for volunteer work and I got into the SNAP call center.

Thank you for calling the food bank. How can I help you? I actually love doing it because I’ve always worked in HR. I’ve always wanted to work and help people in all sorts of matters, and I and I can connect with these people that are calling me because I get snap.

So I understand their you know, I understand their frustration. I understand their sadness and discouragement. I understand how HRA works. Okay.

So I’m gonna I’m gonna ask you some information. I’m gonna need your name first of all. If I can do a snap screening and I can help a person get their benefits by advising them how, you know, how to navigate the process, I am very happy doing that because, you know, everything is very expensive, but it is terrible that no one should be going hungry in this city. With so much money that that’s out there, no one should be suffering like this.

Nobody.

As Food Bank For New York City’s longest serving food banker, Gil operates a hi-lo at our warehouse — moving pallets, checking every load, making sure nothing slips through. It’s precise work, and he knows exactly why it matters: one mistake in the warehouse means somebody outside doesn’t eat.

Gil grew up knowing what it means to need help, to have nothing to eat — he lived it for years. That’s why every pallet he moves today carries something personal. It’s not just a job to him. It’s thirty-five years of showing up for people who remind him of who he used to be.

Gil doesn’t do it alone — nobody at the warehouse does. It takes the whole team, working together, to make sure the people outside get what they need.

Give today — help Gil keep showing up for every New Yorker. 

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Gil Llavet, HiLo Operator:

Hi. My name’s Gil. I’m a hi lo operator. I’ve been working for a food bank for New York City for 35 years.

It takes not only me to do this. Everybody in the warehouse, we all get together and do what have to be done. We had to be careful what we’re doing because any mistake that we do, it affects the people outside who need it.

I grew up poor.

I know the meaning of when you need help or you have nothing to eat.

And I went through that.

I went through that for years. And that’s why I appreciate everything what I get and I like to help all the people, because I know

Growing up in a Massachusetts housing project, Bob knew only government-issue orange cheese until a monthly truck brought blocks of unbranded white cheese and milk that carried his family through — food that eventually helped get him through school, football, the Navy, and college.

That same path led him to Food Bank For New York City, where he now serves as Chief Procurement Officer, known affectionately as “the Big Cheese,” though he’s quick to credit his team over himself. Today he helps run day-to-day operations across the organization, including efforts to strengthen the soup kitchen and pantry in Harlem, driven by the belief that food security lets people focus on work and kids focus on school.

For Bob, the story closes a loop: the kid who once waited for the truck is now the one making sure it keeps rolling for someone else. “Now I get to pay it back,” he says.

Give today and keep the truck rolling — so the next kid waiting on it gets food today and a food-secure tomorrow.

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Bob Silvia, Chief Procurement Officer:

Morning.

Warehouse Professional:

Morning, sir. How are you?

Bob:

Not too bad. How are you?

There is a joke around the food bank that Bob didn’t even know that white cheese existed until he was ten.

It’s a true story. I thought all cheese was fluorescent orange. There was a revelation when I saw white cheese. I was like, “That’s not cheese.”

So I grew up in a small town in Massachusetts in a housing project and looked forward to seeing the truck roll through the apartments and onto the basketball court, where the guys would roll up the back of the truck and they would give out evaporated milk and government cheese.

By getting the TEFAP food when I was a kid and getting the government food—the box of milk that said “Milk.” That was my favorite thing. It just said, “Milk.”

No need for color. Milk.

Right?

By getting that, you know, that allowed me to go to school. It got me graduated, it got me football, it got me into the Navy, it got me into college after the Navy, and then after that, it got me here. It just became a natural path to go into the world of nonprofit.

I think this happens with a lot of people who work in food banks. We didn’t start off working in a food bank; we were actually the recipients of the food from the food bank.

So as the Chief Procurement Officer, I bring in all the food—or my team does. I don’t do anything. I’m insignificant compared to the people around me. I mean, I work with absolute stars.

I also help oversee the operations of the food bank, and I’ve recently been working to help our soup kitchen and our pantry in Harlem kind of be the best they can be as well. I’m trying to do that by tying everybody together—you know, kind of one team, one dream.

We are part of the supply chain. We are part of people’s lives. We make it possible for people to go to work, for kids to go to school, and not think about where their next meal is coming from. And that’s really what it’s all about, right?

So now I get to pay back every time that truck drove onto the playground, landed on the basketball court, and gave out that cheese.

All I am now is the guy driving onto the basketball court, giving out cheese.

Marcus grew up in the Bronx carrying the weight of hunger — an empty fridge, a family stretched thin, uncertainty about the next meal. Now, as a Warehouse Professional at Food Bank For New York City, he moves thousands of pounds of food a day, lifting that same weight off other families’ shoulders.

He calls his coworkers family, not a team, and says walking through the door still makes him “mad happy” — this is home.

For Marcus, the job is personal: he’s making sure the next kid in the Bronx doesn’t have to carry what he once did.

Give today and lift alongside him — so that no New Yorker has to carry the weight of hunger alone.

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Marcus Stenson, Warehouse Professional:

And we’re good to go.

A typical day for us is a hard-working day.

We’re always cranking up the volume. Go ahead. Go ahead. We have to get this stuff out.

How much you got left? You got a lot?

It’s not a time that we can go without giving somebody their food. I got you, papa.

You know how we do.

I get to do something for people to prevent them from going through what I went through. I know what it is to not have food. I was maybe a teenager. Me and my brothers, my mom—we all went through a hard time.

Hearing that and all of that is very hard. It’s very stressful. It’s mentally stressful to know that you’re waking up and you have nothing. Looking at cabinets—they’re empty. Your refrigerator is empty.

You have nothing.

So it was a lot of sacrificing that we had to do just to get by, but we just kept fighting and made it through. And then somehow, God brought me here to Food Bank, where I could do what I love to do, which is always helping people.

Okay.

Every time I walk through the door, I just get mad happy.

That’s what I’m talking about.

This is my home, literally.

Yep. Everything is perfect.

It’s a team here, but it’s not really a team.

It’s a family.

Alright, darling.

Good guy.

Everybody plays a part.

Keep up the good work, boy. I see you.

None of us could get this done unless we all come in here together.

Donors, thank you. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing.

As long as y’all can help us keep hitting our goal every time, all the time, I don’t need nothing more, nothing less.

This goes here.

It’s Food Bank. This is what we do. This is what we’re here for.

Jayme is a mother of three in New York City, doing the impossible math of covering food, rent, and Wi-Fi every month on a tight budget. Rising grocery prices force tradeoffs — cheaper, less healthy options instead of the fresh food she wants for her kids.

The pantry changes that equation: a recent visit brought home spinach, kale, chicken, and ground beef, freeing up money she’d otherwise spend on groceries to go toward rent and Wi-Fi instead. For Jayme, the pantry isn’t occasional help — it’s how she keeps her family’s month covered, from dinner to homework to a roof overhead.

Give today and help moms like Jayme make the math work.

Hunger Action Month is powered by Wonder through the Grubhub Community Fund.

Transcript:

Jayme, Mom of three from the Bronx:

Come on, baby.

I walk 24 minutes over here, then wait on the line, and it’s hot outside. But we make a little trip out of it, where he gets to ride his scooter.

Amelia, she’s three. Aubrey’s eleven, and Timothee is nine. They’re my world. I would do everything I can for them. Make a way.

They do get hungry, so we gotta worry about what their next meal is.

Sandwiches?

Yeah.

I always put the food first because the kids gotta eat first.

Thank you.

Got it?

Yeah.

Then rent, the Wi-Fi, because they do homework all on the computer now.

Like, if I don’t have Wi-Fi once in a while, we’ll have to come outside, grab onto, like, a McDonald’s Wi-Fi, ShopRite. It’s hard. But my grandma always told me, “If there’s a will, there’s a way.” So I try to do what I can.

If the rent is late a couple of days, then my landlord is okay with it.

It’s harder now. The fruits—two years ago, they were two dollars. Now they’re, like, six dollars for strawberries.

The meats are expensive. I have to go for what’s cheaper, like pork chops because they’re the cheapest, or the boxed macaroni and cheese.

You get the cheaper things instead of what I really wanna get.

Chicken?

Yeah.

You know, a family pack of chicken or, you know, better vegetables and fruits.

It’s rough because, you know, picking cheaper stuff goes toward your health also.

So I want better stuff, healthier stuff.

So coming to the food pantry does help.

I got the spinach, the kale. I got chicken, and I got—I think it’s ground beef.

It feels good because I know I got some stuff that I need, and I don’t gotta worry about it for a bit.

It helps me a lot when I’m running low on the food inside the house.

It’s really appreciated, and my family relies on it a lot during the month.