The number of meals served by City-supported soup kitchens and food pantries was nine percent higher in Spring 2008 than a year before, despite the City’s boast that continued reductions in the welfare rolls have resulted in the fewest people receiving public assistance in 42 years. In April of 2008, according to the City, feeding charities provided more than one million meals. ...read more

Senator John Edwards met with local food pantry clients and toured the Yorkville Common Pantry in East Harlem today as a part of the “Half in Ten” Campaign, which aims to reduce poverty in the United States by 50% in ten years. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger and World Hunger Year joined Senator Edwards in bringing attention to widespread hunger and poverty in New York City. ...read more

For New York City AmeriCorps members, even a day at the park is a day of service. ...read more

Despite skyrocketing demand and dire food shortages at the state’s more than 2,000 emergency feeding programs, the new State budget – just agreed upon by the New York State Legislature and Governor David Patterson – cuts the main source of State funding for such programs by 16%.

Advocates indicated that the State could have avoided such cuts if it had enacted the Assembly plan to restore more equitable taxation to state residents earning more than one million dollars a year or if the State had reduced funding for numerous types of corporate welfare still supported by State dollars. ...read more

The outgoing CEO of the Bear Stearns investment firm, which was just bailed out of near bankruptcy with a $30 billion guarantee from the Federal Reserve to enable JP Morgan Chase to purchase the firm at a huge discount, announced today that the firm had performed so poorly that it was returning all government subsidies that it had received, including $37 million in tax breaks and other incentives given by the City in 1991 and the $75 million benefits package also given to them by the City in 1997. ...read more

"Hunger Group Launches Pioneering Online Volunteer Match System;
Urges New Yorkers to “Make New Year’s Resolution to Fight Hunger”

At Event at Famous Soup Kitchen in Chelsea, Group Also
Announces 5th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend Serve-A-Thon

In an event at the famed Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen in Chelsea, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, joined by City Council Member Eric Gioia, announced the launch of a state-of-the-art, online volunteer matching system (http://www.nyccah.org/volunteer), which is now one of the most advanced such systems in the nation. ...read more

More Produce Vendors Would “Take Anti-Obesity Fight to Our Streets”

Anti-hunger advocates praised the joint announcement today by Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn that they would be seeking to increase the number of fresh produce street vendors and supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods. ...read more

"Record Number of Feeding Charities Can’t Keep Up with Soaring Need;
Federal Data Shows 1 in 6 New Yorkers Still Lack Sufficient Food;
Food Insecurity Costs New York City $2.65 Billion per Year;
Only Sign of Hope Is Food Stamp Participation Rising with Need

The number of people who use food pantries and soup kitchens soared in New York City in 2007, while food stocks drastically declined, forcing fully half of these programs to ration food, according to the annual survey of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger ...read more

Despite the continued strength in the top sectors of the economy in 2006, fully 35.5 million Americans – including 12.6 million children – lived in households that couldn’t afford an adequate supply of food, according to food insecurity data released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Those numbers represent a 390,000-person increase over 2005, although the USDA cautioned that the increase may not be statistically significant. ...read more

Free Summer Meals Sites And Farmers' Markets Mapped Online; Resource allows localized search, color-coded results for children in need ...read more