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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Stephen Grimaldi, Executive Director of New York Common Pantry on Food Insecurity and Funding Challenges
3:03:54
ยท
3 min
Stephen Grimaldi, Executive Director of New York Common Pantry, testifies about the increasing food insecurity in New York City and the challenges faced by food assistance programs due to funding cuts. He emphasizes the urgent need for sustained funding, particularly for the Community Food Connections program, and highlights the growing demand for food assistance services.
- New York Common Pantry served 11 million meals last year and is on pace to serve 12 million this year, assisting 730,000 visitors.
- Grimaldi discusses various funding cuts, including the termination of the local food purchase assistance cooperative agreement, which will result in a gap of over 2.3 million meals for their organization.
- He calls for the city to follow through on baseline funding of $100 million per year for food assistance programs and requests expedited approval for expanding mobile pantry services.
Stephen Grimaldi
3:03:54
Okay.
3:03:56
Good afternoon.
3:03:58
Thank you committee sorry.
3:04:00
Thank you committee chair Ayala and members of the committee on general welfare for this opportunity.
3:04:05
I'm gifting you, Diana, three hundred plates, from our participants in multiple languages, French, Spanish, Mandarin, and English.
3:04:18
Notes from our participants who, are concerned about the cuts to the Community Food Connections program.
3:04:25
As you know, hunger in New York's reached epic proportions, epidemic proportions.
3:04:29
I could go through the data.
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Point 3,000,000 households, nearly 3,000,000 people are struggling to make ends meet according to the True Cost of Living report.
3:04:36
One in three New Yorkers used a food pantry in the past three years according to Robinhood.
3:04:42
The data goes on and on and on.
3:04:43
I think we have you've heard already today more information about that.
3:04:49
I know you're aware of that.
3:04:50
Last year, we served 11,000,000 meals at the New York Common Pantry, and we're on pace to serve 12,000,000 this year assisting 730,000 visitors.
3:05:01
When we started, we were serving 1,500,000 meals to roughly a hundred thousand guests.
3:05:07
We continue to to do more.
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Last month, we experienced a 13% increase in March compared to last March.
3:05:17
So just comparing that particular month.
3:05:22
And of course, that's an increase.
3:05:24
That's on top of the increase of 17% in individuals we served last year.
3:05:29
We've talked a lot of people have talked about the cuts.
3:05:31
Recent Department of Agriculture termination of the local food purchase assistance cooperative agreement, this funds NIF NIF or New York Food for New York Families.
3:05:40
Last year, that was $1,900,000 for the New York Common Pantry.
3:05:43
That's a gap of over 2,300,000 meals.
3:05:47
Never mind the snap cuts that were that are coming, WIC, possibly CSFP, EFSP, which we already know about, TFAP, which Nick just talked about.
3:05:58
A lot of these cuts are going to layer and and really hurt those we serve.
3:06:05
We applaud the city, the city council for the baseline funding for a hundred million per year, and we hope that the budget will include that.
3:06:14
My last thing I did wanna say a little bit off script, listening to First Deputy Commissioner talk about mobile pantries.
3:06:23
We have 60 mobile sites in addition to nourish sites.
3:06:26
We have about a 75 sites, mobilely, across our city.
3:06:31
We have been waiting for two years to get an EFRO number from the city so we can open more mobile pantries and we can get CFC money for that.
3:06:39
So, we need CFC money to be able to do that, but we also need to have clearance just a site visit, which we have been promised for two years.
3:06:47
There was initial visit.
3:06:49
So those are the sort of things that can easily be done.
3:06:53
Once we get an EFRO number, we can start distributing CFC food.
3:06:57
Right now, we can only serve CFC food to our, brick and mortar locations.