Coronavirus Response Update from Feeding Westchester

Feeding Westchester and our agency partners continue to aggressively work to meet the rising need across the County. Right now, we are working with Westchester authorities to address the needs of seniors who are shut in their homes, children who don’t have access to meals now that schools are closed, and our most poverty-affected towns within the County. We are working as fast as we can against the clock to get ahead of whatever is coming. To help with our efforts, the PepsiCo Foundation generously donated $100,000 to cover the cost of 160,000 pounds of food being distributed to our neighbors in need.

Here’s the latest:

• Feeding Westchester ordered a half a million pounds of food
• 100,000 pounds of food arrived at our operations center today
• We dropped additional emergency food in Ossining and Peekskill today
• We have meal kits on the way as well as prepared meals that are flash frozen
• We are working with local municipalities who will handle distribution to make sure this food is delivered as quickly as possible
• We are giving out all kinds of food from shelf-stable items to fresh produce
• We are working on building a distribution model at our warehouse right now

Our challenges:

• We need volunteers to help us do our job, but we have to limit the amount of people who visit Feeding Westchester to protect the food so we can do our job
• We are running on a skeleton crew and still trying to meet a greater demand than we have ever seen
• We are competing with other parts of the country for resources right now, including New York City, like the National Guard to help us pack food
• We cannot accept food donations or food drives at this time

What people need to know:

• Feeding Westchester’s regular distributions are continuing through our agency partners
  • People in need of food can find an agency near them here: https://feedingwestchester.org/find-help/agency-locator/
• We are increasing the number of Mobile Food Pantries around the County
  • We will continue to update that schedule here: https://feedingwestchester.org/find-help/mobile-food-pantry-schedule/
• If people want to know how they can help us, they can make a donation at feedingwestchester.org to help us buy food that is already packaged!