In 2003, The Starr Foundation formed the Fund for New York City Hunger Relief—a collaborative effort to stabilize and expand charitable food distribution in New York City.
The Fund leveraged the shared strengths of three central agencies fighting hunger in New York City—Feeding America, City Harvest, and the Food Bank For New York City—which supported and coordinated hundreds of small, neighborhood-based food programs, forming the backbone of food distribution across all five boroughs.
Over the life of the program, from 2003 to 2010, the Fund awarded 602 grants to 198 organizations, totaling nearly $20 million. Grants were tailored to meet the organizations’ specific needs, including buying new refrigerators to enable the distribution of fresh fruits and vegetables at a neighborhood food pantry, replacing commercial stoves and ovens for community soup kitchens, implementing new technology for improved efficiency and service quality, and developing capacity within the key local agencies to build and sustain community-wide networks.
The partners reported that “simultaneously, we have seen numerous agencies blossom into organizations that see themselves not only as providers of basic need but as gateways to services that can lift people out of the poverty that is at the root of hunger. These funds have also helped catalyze the agencies to think collaboratively about direct service provision and in their efforts to mobilize themselves as a unified voice for the people they serve.”
Foundation funding also included general operating support for the partners to ensure that they had sufficient capacity to sustain and carry out the New York initiative. These vital infrastructure investments in New York City’s hunger relief services continue to benefit the city’s most vulnerable populations today.