The NCCDC Food Pantry Services work to eliminate hunger and its root causes … because no one should be hungry.
NCCDC works with a cooperative, network of partner agencies to distribute emergency food to hungry families. We fight hunger’s root causes through public policy advocacy, nutrition and garden education and work to strengthen community food systems.
NCCDC is determined to help fight childhood hunger.
Childhood hunger is a huge problem in the Bronx. The Bronx is among New York counties with a high rate of child food insecurity. NCCDC’s Food Pantry Services is geared toward supporting the goal of developing additional capacities for food pantries. These additional capacities will have the potential to reach an additional 1,250 families per month and distribute groceries for hundreds of thousands meals per year.
Focus On Freshness
Healthier choices for stronger communities
Research continues to demonstrate the correlation between nutrition and health. That’s why NCCDC Food Pantry Services has made improving the nutritional content of the food we distribute a priority, since studies show that low-income populations – including emergency food recipients – suffer disproportionately from diet-related diseases. Across the entire organization, we are taking a closer look at our ability to better serve clients by providing them with food that is wholesome, healthy and fresh.
Challenges arise particularly from the exploding importance of nutrition. Increasingly, food banks are called on not just to fill stomachs, but to do it in a way that encourages health and discourages obesity. For many Americans, obesity is not the opposite of hunger but the flip side, as they try to stretch their food budgets by piling up freeze-dried ramen noodles instead of more expensive fresh produce.
The NCCDC Food Pantry Services Program is in a unique position to take on the challenges involved in helping to feed America’s poor with wholesomely nutritious food.