Over the past week, Share Our Strength has been connecting our partner organizations on the ground in New York and New Jersey to needed resources. Our partners at City Harvest, the Food Bank for NYC (both in New York City), and Community FoodBank of New Jersey are working around the clock to get needed meals and food assistance to thousands of families in the affected areas. Additionally, Share Our Strength has made emergency grants to each of these three critical relief organizations and will continue to support them throughout the recovery ahead. If you are inclined to make a financial contribution or to volunteer your time, please consider contacting one of these essential local organizations:

The Food Bank for NYC: http://www.foodbanknyc.org/

City Harvest: http://www.cityharvest.org/

Community FoodBank of New Jersey: http://www.njfoodbank.org/

There are also many organizations working tirelessly to provide relief to families beyond emergency food. If you are interested in learning more about those efforts we encourage you to visit The Robin Hood Foundation:  http://www.robinhood.org/give-hurricane-sandy

Chefs and restaurants have long been key supporters of Share Our Strength's work to end hunger. With power outages and flooding, many of our most ardent advocates are now focused on readying their businesses to reopen. Because functioning small businesses are the first step to recovery, Share Our Strength encourages anyone able to do so to support local restaurants in the NYC area. #DineoutNYC is a grassroots movement underway to motivate people to dine out in restaurants throughout NYC in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. This movement helps restaurant operators and their employees get back to work and helps New York City to get back to business. #dineoutNYC (on Twitter and Facebook).

Through our New York City No Kid Hungry campaign, we’ve also remained in close contact with the New York City Department of Education, offering support as they work to get schools and school meal programs back up and running for the city’s kids. We will continue to identify opportunities to support the Department of Education with any emergency assistance they work through plans to get school meals to kids in the coming days. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if we can provide additional guidance or information about connecting with organizations in the New York area.

To find information on emergency efforts in affected areas:

If you are in an affected area in the 5 boroughs of NYC and need assistance please go to nyc.gov.

If you are in an affected area in NJ and need assistance please go to ready.nj.gov.

Thanks for all you do to help make No Kid Hungry a reality.

All the best,