Yorkville Common Pantry volunteers and staff restock shelves for the next day's distribution. (Photo by Nate Rawlings)
Wendy Stein helps direct traffic, keeping the operation moving until the throng of clients thins out. A volunteer for more than 16 years and a pantry board member for the past eight, Stein has seen the number of needy clients balloon.
“The last five years, it’s been exponential,” Stein says. “It took a long time, and it was huge for us, to get to a million meals a year. The time to go from 1 million to 2 million meals a year was maybe two years.”
Outside the pantry, a few minutes before the doors would open, Carlos Dominguez, 20, waited in line with 20 other. It was his third visit to the pantry within a week. He talked about why he came.
“Somebody told me, a couple of my friends. I come with three or four of them,” Dominguez said. “People come here to eat every day. I don’t have much money, and the food is free.“ He said the economy has hurt his business as a handyman and jack of all trades. “I’m a car mechanic for BMWs, Volkswagens, Toyotas, I paint, I make keys,” he said.
Dominguez has tried another free food pantry, although he couldn’t remember its name. He prefers Yorkville’s pantry because it offers so many different kinds of foods and services. “You can brush your teeth, wash your clothes,” he said. “There’s a lot of food—like every kind of food. I like the fruit, some oranges, apple juice.”
He described his favorite meal. “The one with the chicken, the rice, the beans and potatoes with cheese,” he said. “It’s real good.”
The Yorkville Common Pantry, the city’s largest community pantry, provides food to more than 7,000 households. Clients receive weekly packages containing nine planned meals– three a day for three days – and usually purchase additional meals with food stamps.
The average client family used to visit the pantry 1.5 times per month, according to Daniel Reyes, the pantry’s program director. That number increased to 3.85 times per month at the recession’s height, but has fallen back to 3.2 times per month.
“The year before last, we saw a spike in the number of new clients,” Reyes says. “Low end workers lost their jobs at a greater rate than others.”
More than a million New York City residents require emergency food at least once a year, according to a study by City Harvest and the Food Bank for New York City. More than a third of those residents will have to choose between buying food and paying rent. And that report was released in 2006, when national unemployment was 4.6 percent. It’s now 10.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So at the Yorkville pantry, where volunteers are preparing invitations for the big annual fundraiser, there are no plans for a black tie gala, theater excursion or cocktail party. This year, the pantry is asking its supporters to stay home and mail checks.
“In this climate, we didn’t feel it was right to have an event,” says Stephen Grimaldi, the pantry’s executive director. “This year we’re having a non-event event. Don’t rent a tux, go to the dry cleaners- –spend your money on yourself, and a little bit on us too.”
In the lingering economic downturn, organizations that feed the hungry are facing a two-sided crunch. As unemployment rises, more people need their services, but the corporations that traditionally support them have suffered large losses and contributed less money.
“It has dried up — more than a bit,” Grimaldi says of corporate donations. Since government funds only account for 13 percent of the pantry’s operating budget, private and corporate donations must cover the cost of feeding the hungry in Harlem.
Over the past three years, as Stein notes, the number of clients who come to the Yorkville Common Pantry has increased dramatically. In 2007, the pantry served 1.4 million meals, which rose to 1.7 million in 2008. This year, the pantry has served more than 2 million meals, 1.9 million of which were pantry food packages.
“Hunger’s on the front page, and it should be,” Grimaldi says. “People who didn’t traditionally need meal programs are coming.”
Such challenges have affected the vast majority of the city’s food assistance programs. Nearly 93 percent of emergency food sites saw an increase in first-time clients; more than half saw a greater than 25 percent increase, according to another report by the Food Bank of New York City.
The Food Bank, which is the city’s largest hunger relief organization and contributes food to nearly 1,000 assistance programs, including the Yorkville Common Pantry, had difficulty meeting the higher demand early in the recession. Almost 70 percent of its emergency food sites reported reducing the amount of food given to each family, 28 percent reduced distribution hours and days, and more than half reported having to turn away individuals for lack of food, according to its 2009 report, “NYC Hunger Experience: A Year in Recession.”
The Food Bank used several tax changes and increased unemployment benefits to enroll more eligible families in food stamp programs and turn away fewer clients. But these maneuvers have been temporary solutions, and the Food Bank is seeking more sustainable ways to serve the growing need.
“Last year’s response, however successful, was temporary, and leaves us with a tremendous gap in resources,” Food Bank President and CEO Lucy Cabrera said in a statement. “Only sustainable solutions will drive down food poverty.”
The Yorkville Common Pantry has never had to turn away any client for lack of food, according to Reyes. “Granted, the packages aren’t as full as they used to be,” says Reyes. “When we see a large intake of new people, it’s usually from a pantry that’s shut down or turned them away. We get them processed quickly and make sure they get a meal package.”
Though Yorkville Common Pantry serves anyone in the city through its hot meal program, which allows people to receive a single meal when they’re in great need, the core of its service is the pantry program. Individuals and families in 12 Manhattan zip codes can register to receive free groceries weekly. Seven of those 12 are in Harlem.
Candice Frawley has served as a volunteer since 2002, and chairs the pantry’s development committee. “My background, unfortunately, is professional fundraising,” Frawley says. “But I’d rather be stuffing boxes.”
Her dual role in the pantry’s operations has allowed Frawley to see donations ebbing during the recession.
“Last year was the toughest, but people have still been generous,” Frawley says. “Lots of corporations donate time through volunteer days and gifts in kind. It actually started getting tighter in the 90’s because of mergers and acquisitions. We might have three banks all donating, then they merge into one bank.”
Though corporate donations account for part of the pantry’s funding, Frawley says it has never relied on large donations for the weekly food distribution. “Thank goodness we weren’t heavily reliant on those that ran into problems when the you-know-what hit the fan last fall,” she says.
In the midst of the slowdown in funding and the increase in clients, the pantry has expanded its services for the most needy New Yorkers.
Its basement serves a variety of purposes: Homeless people living on streets or in shelters can use its showers and laundry machines. A counselor works with homeless clients to find them more permanent help. On Saturdays, the basement becomes a classroom where volunteers teach cooking and nutrition classes for adults and children, emphasizing a healthy lifestyle. Once a week, a volunteer barber gives free haircuts. “Food is the primary object, but it’s an engagement tool for other things,” Grimaldi says.
For instance, the pantry recently added a program, with the city’s human resources department and its housing authority, to help clients file electronic food stamp applications. Clients can bring their paperwork to the pantry, where a staffer will prepare an online form, so that clients don’t have to trek to another office for food stamps. This year, more than 500 people have received food stamps through this program. “That’s $1 million back into this Harlem community,” Grimaldi says.
To support such services, Grimaldi and his staff have found creative ways to cut costs while actually increasing service.
“We’ve cut every possible expense,” Grimaldi says. “Everything from turning off the lights to negotiating gas and electric rates, buying early at a locked in rate.”
The pantry operates with a staff of only 19 paid employees; volunteers provide 63 percent of the labor.
Roland Woodland, directing clients to the exit after they receive their food, began volunteering at the pantry when he retired after teaching special education in Harlem for 27 years. He has gotten to know many of the clients, but cautions “you have to keep it professional. No one can have more peanut butter or bags than anyone else. You have to treat everyone the same.”
The pantry recently received an award from the Robin Hood Foundation that included a $50,000 grant to continue servicing Harlem’s hungry. “We’re a professional organization with a professional manager,” Stein says. “You will much more directly help the needy by giving to the YCP rather than to a city-wide organization or a smaller one that doesn’t feature the professionalism, client relationship and case management we have.”
Before moving on to administrative tasks, the volunteers leave the shelves stocked for the next day, when clients will line up for food packages again.
