Where is the Food?

April 14 | Peter F. Crescenti

Where is the food? That was the reaction at Long Island Cares recently when we were blindsided by a cancelled delivery of more than 250,000 pounds of food – food that was to be distributed to the six Long Island Cares owned-and-operated food pantries and the scores of pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and others that we provide with  food for our neighbors in need.

Now the question is, how do we replace the missing eggs, milk, chicken, turkey, cheese and canned fruit so that those relying on us and our network of pantries and other food providers don’t go hungry?

Well, we are already instituting solutions that will help us close the gap caused by cancelled funding for food banks at the federal level. Here are our plans for the remainder of 2025:

• Increasing the number and scope of food drives at the private and corporate levels
• Working with the supermarket chains and superstores that already donate food to us, to increase their donations as much as possible
• Advocating for increased funding for the state-wide Nourish New York program, which provides money to food banks to buy produce, dairy products, seafood and other essential foods in their own backyard
• Developing a fundraising campaign that will focus solely on helping us purchase the food that was never delivered
• Dipping into our reserves

The last two are especially important because we estimate it would cost more than $360,000 to replace the missing meals, which total nearly 214,000. Those are lots of breakfasts, lunches and dinners that may never be served.

In an interview with Newsday after the food shortage was made public, our President & CEO, Paule Pachter, told reporter Olivia Winslow: “It’s less food for our pantries and everyone else. What’s going to happen to the farmers? I don’t know. This is the food the government would normally buy from the farmers.”

To the layman, the cause of this panic is pretty much undecipherable. But in so many words, the U.S. Department of Agriculture pulled back funds that had been earmarked for a program called the Commodity Credit Corporation. 

Again, in his interview with Newsday, Pachter said, “We thought they would allow the food to flow until the end of the contract period [August 2025], but apparently that is not happening.”

“What Long Island Cares and other food banks didn’t know was that the foods we were supposed to receive were going to be cancelled because they were being paid for through CCC dollars.”

But this is not only a Long Island mess: Food banks in the Bronx, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester and other areas are not getting their shipments either. But Long Island Cares is determined that we will find ways, through whatever means, to help feed the 280,000 Long Islanders that rely on food banks and other sources of free food. We exist to do that, and by doing so we help fulfill the mission of our founder, the late singer/songwriter Harry Chapin, who brought food insecurity to light on LI.

Now, Long Island’s two food banks and hundreds of food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, senior citizens homes and more must respond to the fact that hunger in Nassau and Suffolk counties will not disappear without significant help. And that help includes funding from D.C. 

Write to your representatives in the Senate and Congress. Be part of the solution.

Peter F. Crescenti, Media Relations Specialist