West Side Campaign Against Hunger

Instacart has been an amazing supporter of our Healthy Foods Holiday Challenge, and their contributions have been a great help to the WSCAH community. On November 14th, members of their team volunteered with us and packed produce bags for our customers. Thank you so much for helping WSCAH serve our neighbors in need this holiday season!

We’re excited to announce that Citymeals on Wheels has joined The Roundtable: Allies for Food Access, a coalition of New York City’s largest emergency food and service providers that includes West Side Campaign Against Hunger , New York Common Pantry, Project Hospitality, St. John’s Bread & Life, Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, Met Council, Part of the Solution, The Campaign Against Hunger. The Roundtable is a dedicated network of emergency food providers collaborating to bring more resources to communities, so none of our neighbors go hungry. Together, our members pool their expertise to pursue innovative practices, best prices, and the most effective policies to serve their communities. With the addition of Citymeals on Wheels—a designated emergency responder that that prepares and delivers 2 million meals annually to homebound older adults—we’re strengthening our collective mission to ensure New Yorkers get served the way they should. #FoodAccess #EndHunger #NYCCommunity

A huge thank you to the Jacob’s Pickles team for volunteering with us during our Healthy Foods Holiday Challenge. Your time and effort make a real difference in the fight against food insecurity, and we’re so grateful for your partnership. Together, we’re creating a stronger, more nourished community this holiday season!

Last week, WSCAH’s Plentiful Plates was our best yet! Thanks to the overwhelming support of our community, we raised over $150,000 to make sure all New Yorkers have access with dignity to healthy food and supportive services. We are deeply grateful to our sponsors—Wachs Strategies, Morgan Stanley, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Kim and Evan Meyers, and David and Nancy Solomon—for making this unforgettable evening possible. A heartfelt thank you to Tavern on the Green for their incredible generosity in once again hosting us at such a stunning venue, and to all who joined us to support our efforts to transform the models and methods of feeding our community and advocate for lasting change. We will continue to be here on the ground, in our community, for all our community. Making a difference together!

To kick off the holiday season, five of our Board Members—Karen Sonet-Rosenthal, Connie Coddington, Irvin Rosenthal, Susan McLaughlin, and Doug Satzman—joined fellow Board Member and Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC) CEO Maria Lizardo and her team to volunteer, distributing turkeys and nutritious holiday foods to NMIC customers. WSCAH is so proud and lucky to have such an amazing community. With your help, we are ensuring that every family who visits our distributions has everything they need to enjoy the holiday season.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Claudia Edison to WSCAH!?Claudia is our new Communications Manager and they will be leading our efforts to enhance WSCAH’s visibility, engaging our community, and supporting our fundraising efforts through the creation and execution of communication strategies and efforts across digital (website, emails, social media) and physical (events and letters) channels. Claudia brings to WSCAH a passion for mission driven organizations through years of experience of managing and consulting on communication efforts at several non-profit and grassroots organizations.

Last month, the wonderful staff from Trinity School spent their professional development day volunteering with us! They joined in the work at both our 86th Street and 180th Street locations, helping to pack and distribute fresh produce to our community. We are so grateful for their support and dedication to our mission. Thank you, Trinity School!

We’re thrilled to share that WSCAH was recently featured in 6sqft as one of the top places to volunteer in NYC this holiday season! It’s an honor to be recognized for our efforts in providing healthy food and support services to New Yorkers across the five boroughs. With special Saturday volunteer shifts—including some dedicated days for families to volunteer together—starting now through Thanksgiving and distributions of turkey and pork shoulder underway, there are plenty of ways to make an impact. Join us at our 86th Street distribution center or 180th Street warehouse and help bring relief to those facing food insecurity this season.

WSCAH’s Chief Program Officer, Alyson Rosenthal, joined The City University of New York Urban Food Policy Institute in a conversation about food policy, community engagement, and social inequality. Alyson spoke about the way WSCAH’s community guides and participates in our work and went over some key points of policy improvement that WSCAH is advocating for—namely, expanding SNAP access and support through Federal Farm Bill legislation, expanding eligibility for SNAP, and baselining the New York City’s Community Food Connections program into the FY2026 budget. ? Read the interview now: https://lnkd.in/e_8FaMxJ

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our special virtual Town Hall, “WSCAH: Evolving Models for Combatting Food Insecurity,” last week. If you couldn’t join us or just want to revisit the discussion, we’re pleased to share the full recording with you here: https://lnkd.in/efKfmBfa This session featured a conversation with Carolina Cortes-Rivera, WSCAH’s Digital Food Choice Program Manager, and Maria Lizardo, CEO of Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC) Corporation and WSCAH Board Member, and CEO of WSCAH, Greg Silverman. We walked listeners through WSCAH's latest initiatives that are transforming food access across New York City. We also explored innovative partnerships, groundbreaking distribution models, and advocacy efforts that are making a difference in the lives of countless New Yorkers.