Results tagged “foodbank”

A report released Tuesday by the Food Bank for New York City has found that approximately four million New Yorkers—one in two—are having trouble paying for groceries, a 26 percent increase since the last survey in February. The Hunger Experience 2008 Update also found that college degrees are increasingly useless protection against indigence; one out of every three (36 percent) NYC college graduates had difficulty affording needed food this year, up from 11 percent in 2003. Lucy Cabrera, the food bank's president, says, "The results of this report are devastating. These numbers should be a wake-up call for all New Yorkers." The Food Bank NYC sources and distributes food to the estimated 1.3 million New Yorkers who rely on emergency food. Today you've got until noon to help the Food Bank by bidding on one of their cool celebrity decorated lunchboxes. (Just please don't outbid us on Mike D's Jacob the Jeweler box.)

            

The third annual Lunchbox Auction to raise money for the Food Bank for New York City kicked off last night with a celebrity fundraiser at Milk Studios in the Meatpacking District. Also benefiting The Lunchbox Fund of South Africa, the auction features over 77 lunchboxes custom designed by celebrities (and/or their handlers). Among the more eye catching boxes were avant-garde Chicago chef Grant Achatz's abstract deconstruction of a lunchbox, Tony Bennett's painting of a happy pooch (see below), and Michael Stipe's three lunchboxes with bronze cassettes and a camera embedded in molds of chocolate, salt and jello.

However you are spending Christmas Day, we hope you have a happy and safe holiday. Please take the time to think of others: If you get new clothes, make room in your closet and consider donating your gently worn ones to charities Donate food to City Harvest or the Food Bank. Here are more giving opportunities via the City of New York.

Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn have announced a plan to issue 1,500 new permits to vendors who commit to selling fresh fruits and vegetables from carts in low-income neighborhoods. The “Green Cart” plan, expected to be approved by the City Council, comes on the heels of a Health Department study comparing Harlem to the Upper East Side; it determined that supermarkets in Harlem are 30% less common than the UES, and that only 3% of Harlem bodegas carry leafy green vegetables, compared to 20% on the UES. The UES also has better sushi, but that disparity remains unacknowledged in Bloomberg's plan.

During the holidays, we are all bombarded with requests for charitable giving. Sure, it's a great way to do something good and squeeze in one more tax deduction before year's end, but given the number of requests, making a choice about how to spend your charity dollars can be somewhat daunting. The Times focused this week on the dizzying number of food-related charities making year-end requests.

For the second year running, the Food Bank for New York City and the Lunchbox Fund of South Africa have enlisted over 100 celebrities in their holiday fundraiser. Boldface names like Kanye West, Elton John, Cameron Diaz, Mike Meyers, William Wegman and, um, Urban Outfitters, have created personalized, autographed lunchboxes that are now onsale via online auction. At Thursday night's kick-off event at Saatchi & Saatchi, a lunchbox by Michael Stipe was snatched up...

We hope the following doesn't put anyone off their appetite before they've even had a chance to tuck into their Thanksgiving feast, but we have to describe what champion eater Tim Janus managed to consume in a publicity feast for charity. In the course of 15 minutes, Janus gobbled down the following:A 10-pound turkey Four pounds of mashed potatoes Three pounds of cranberry sauce Two and a half pounds of green beans This was accomplished...

If you’ve got a sweet tooth and a couple hundred bucks to blow, you’ll want to mark your calendar for Friday November 16th, when the Food Network throws New York’s “largest dessert party ever.” Called Sweet, the event will unleash a massive tsunami of temptations from some of NewYork’s top pastry chefs, confectioners, cheese makers, bakers and chocolatiers. To wash it all down there’ll be a wide selection of champagne and wine, including samples from Sopranos star Lorraine Bracco’s Italian wine company, Bracco Wines. (Dr. Melfi herself will be on hand to talk through your feelings about her wines.)

March 3 - 5: Hop Heaven NYC

The phrase "soup kitchen" might not bring gourmet food to mind, but Michael Ennes, the chef at the Broadway Community soup kitchen, is looking to change that. Mr. Ennes cooks approximately 500 meals a week using "homemade stocks, oils without trans fats, organic peanut butter and local produce when he can get it," food from the Food Bank of New York City, and donations from City Harvest, some of which is collected from some of the city's finest restaurants. The Times profiles Mr. Ennes' work at the Broadway Community soup kitchen, where a sign reading "Four Star Soup Kitchen" is proudly displayed.

Yesterday the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene held a public hearing about banning trans fats in city restaurants. Overall, most people said it was a good thing, with health and diet experts noting the "historic nature of these hearings" and that 22% of heart-related deaths are due to trans fats consumption.

September 7: Sake Tasting

Ooh: Sculptor Tom Otterness has a helium balloon in tomorrow's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - a balloon of Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty seems like a perfect subject for Otterness, whose round figures do seem eggish. You can see the balloons for the parade being blown up on the Upper West Side, at West 77th and West 81st Streets and Central Park West (near the Museum of Natural History), from 3PM-10PM today. [Gothamist went two years ago, and we saw a nutty balloon orgy.] Today's Times also looks at the training baloon handlers are getting this year. Those who fail to remember history...blah blah blah. We can recall all the changes that Macy's made a year after the injury of a spectator in 1997, but it looks like those changes are history.

- A majority of NYU grad students vote to strike. even though some think the strike is a bad idea

September 25-29: Latin Beer Tasting

Throughout the month of May the Food Bank for NYC is holding their annual CANS Film Festival. It's much better than Cannes (less travel and papparazzi) and of course beneficial to our city - as it's a fundraiser for their hunger awareness-raising campaign. You may have noticed some PSA's for the event by Christopher Michael Imperioli. [Sidenote: Gothamist is having some trouble even remembering what happened to him in the season finale of the Sopranos last year.]

May 10: A Taste of the Good Life, Une Soirée en Provence

March 16th: International Chocolate Panel. The folks at the at 92nd Street Y are putting together a panel discussion and a fantastic-sounding tasting of chocolate from around the world. The panel, moderated by author and culinary historian Alexandra Leaf, includes Stephanie Teuwen, special events producer for the Chocolate Show, Clay Gordon, chocolate critic and founder of the New World Chocolate Society (sign us up for that one!), Francois Payard, chef-owner of Payard Patisserie & Bistro, and Bill Yosses, executive chef of Joseph’s Citarella. Tickets are $45 and can be bought online. 7:30 PM, 1395 Lexington Avenue (92nd and Lexington), (212)415-5500.

We know there's still plenty of eating to do in September, but there are already a few October events that Gothamist has discovered coming down the pike.