STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Faith leaders and pantry operators had been holding their breath after the mayor proposed $31.2 million in cuts to a city program that serves 22 pantries across the Island, with an emphasis on fresh food.
A last-minute change in the budget last week restored a variety of food funding for struggling New Yorkers.
People who line up at pantries — often keeping their need secret from coworkers and friends — are of all ages and all walks of life: Seniors. Disabled persons. Low wage working families with children.
Hundreds of families rely on the weekly food pantry at El Centro Del Inmigrante in Port Richmond to help feed their families. (Staten Island Advance/Erik Bascome)Staten Island Advance/Erik Bascome
“It is not God’s way for people to be hungry,” said Msgr. William Belford, chair of the Staten Island Vicariate for the NY Archdiocese.
“Staten Island food pantries are relieved to know that the critical Community Food Connection food funds have been restored in full to the NYC Budget!” said Rev. Terry Troia, Chair of the Food for All Campaign of the Staten Island Hunger Task Force.
She enthused, “We thank our Councilmembers Hanks, Joseph Borelli and David Carr for their strong support for our 22 Staten Island pantries! We are deeply grateful to them for their fighting for the most in need families in our borough!”
How food funds were restored
Staten Island’s three council members voted to approve the city’s 2025 budget, which passed 46 to 3. Sunday’s vote came mere hours before the midnight June 30 deadline.
Included in the new budget is also a $2 billion commitment to affordable housing, $100 million for early childhood education; $600 million to K-12 education and cultural and library dollars were restored so branches will be able to stay open on Sundays.
In addition to the lifesaving pantry funding, the budget includes $4.8 million to home food delivery programs to impoverished seniors and other individuals in need.
Staten Island's largest food pantry is in Stapleton off of Broad Street. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)
Food dollars at work
According to the people who help feed the one in ten Staten Islanders living in poverty, restoring food dollars to the city’s budget was non-negotiable, because without enough to eat, nothing else is possible. Dozens of faith leaders and pantry operators had gathered Wednesday on the steps of Borough Hall in a last-ditch effort to save the borough pantries which stood to lose nearly half their funding.
“Catholic Charities of Staten Island is one of many food pantries that will be deeply affected if the mayor’s proposed cuts to the Community Food Connection program were adopted…We were worried,” said Claire Atalla, CEO of Catholic Charities of Staten Island. She said the group provides 136,000 emergency food bags and 28 tons of produce to thousands of borough residents.
Hunger across the city and nation is more prevalent than it was even during the COVID crisis. Last year, more than eight million meals were served on Staten Island, the most in history, according to the Staten Island Hunger Task Force.
The funds “are critical in ensuring that vulnerable Staten Islanders — including children and seniors — have enough food on their tables,” said Amelia Winter, director of Social and Senior Services at the JCC of Staten Island, which serves over 2,500 food insecure people a month.
The restoration of pantry funds in the city budget is a Godsend for the tens of thousands of Islanders who supplement their food budgets with pantry bags and hot meals from Project Hospitality. The borough’s largest provider of emergency nutrition served more than four million meals last year.
“We have children waiting in line at the soup kitchen and food pantry in 90-degree heat. We have seniors calling us crying, desperate, desperate for food,” said Alex Hughes, Project Hospitality director of Hunger Prevention and Advocacy.
Hughes further noted, “The reduction would have caused massive ramifications in the soup kitchens and food pantries across this city and massive reverberations through the emergency food system and would have been felt most by the people who are most vulnerable.”