Permanent solutions elusive in struggle to feed the hungry

This is the second article in a comprehensive series on hunger in Westchester County. Developed in partnership with The Rivertowns Dispatch, the series examines the rise in food insecurity and highlights the people and organizations delivering solutions to fight hunger.

By MARTIN WILBUR

Hunger in Westchester County could be considered so daunting that for some it might seem overwhelming to address.

Dozens of pantries and other food agencies find a way to move millions of pounds of food to thousands of households in need every year. Community members, many of them dedicated to helping neighbors in their towns, have devised various systems and strategies to deliver hunger relief to the needy.

That need is only expected to get worse as the federal government cuts back on social safety net programs, including funding to nonprofit organizations such as Feeding Westchester, a crucial source to help stock the county’s pantries.

Volunteers at the Westchester Land Trust's Sugar Hill Farm in Bedford Hills. The small-acre farm grows more than 8,000 servings of fresh, organic produce annually, distributed through the Community Center of Northern Westchester.Many on the front lines combatting food insecurity in Westchester have seen small organizations transform from fledgling outfits to key distribution sites that prevent countless families from going hungry.

Vera Halpenny, co-director of the Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry with Donna Assumma, and some of their 20-plus volunteers distribute food to an average of 100 families every Wednesday morning outside the South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry. After receiving the monthly shipment of a pallet of produce on Tuesday morning, its shelves were stocked for the next day’s clients, most of whom live in the village, Ardsley, Irvington, and other parts of Greenburgh. 

 Volunteers ready to haul contents from the produce delivery, courtesy of Feeding Westchester, into the Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry. It serves an average of 100 families a week. MARTIN WILBUR PHOTO

The pantry also buys about 750 pounds of food three weeks every month to supplement its shipments from Feeding Westchester and community drop-offs.

“It looks like a lot right now, but by Wednesday afternoon it’s empty,” Halpenny said after the produce was moved inside by volunteers. “It’s pretty much all gone.”

Helping residents feed themselves and their families is a lifeline for many households, many of whom find it increasingly difficult to keep up with rising food costs combined with fixed or stagnated incomes and higher bills for electricity, housing and other essentials.

Tami Wilson, chief operating officer at Feeding Westchester, which expects to distribute more than 19 million pounds of food to its roughly 175 partner organizations this fiscal year, said the nonprofit is focusing first on advocacy. That includes convincing elected officials that more help is needed to maintain the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP — commonly referred to as food stamps, and to strengthen the Farm Bill, one of the United States’ most important legislative vehicles to address food and nutrition and ultimately the supply chain.

“That’s how you solve poverty and food insecurity first and foremost,” Wilson said. “So, we are working to have a stronger advocacy program for our county and bring awareness.”

However, some of the programs in the Farm Bill, such as the SNAP education program, for example, were expected to be interrupted starting Oct. 1 with the federal shutdown. Feeding Westchester’s budget is already down by $2.5 million for fiscal year 2026, which started July 1.

Other strategies she cited include pursuing retail food recovery from restaurants, working with Westchester’s farms and local farmers markets to capture leftover and excess inventory, and engaging with more organizations and corporations within the county to help with funding and food procurement.

One corporation that has had a long history of partnering with Feeding Westchester is PepsiCo. Since the early 1990s, the PepsiCo Foundation and its Food for Good program has engaged hundreds of volunteers from its ranks and provided a $650,000 grant supporting Feeding Westchester’s mobile food pantry,which makes more than 500 stops a year across the county. Over two days in August, PepsiCo associates based at the corporation’s Purchase headquarters packed and distributed 500 meal kits that were distributed at Port Chester Middle School.

Despite all the help, Halpenny said the government needs to provide more support to solve food insecurity.

“That’s really what it boils down to,” she said. “Communities can help you, but it has to go beyond the local supports, and this county is incredibly supportive. We’re very, very fortunate.”

Different methods 

While many communities have pantries and distribution sites through houses of worship or other organizations, those aren’t the only ways to help bring food to those in need. As demand ballooned over the years, volunteers stepped up to help fill in the gaps, sometimes in novel ways.

County Harvest, a food rescue nonprofit launched in 2009 by Missy Palmisciano of Pelham, now recovers more than a million pounds of food a year from supermarkets and food establishments throughout Westchester. Their volunteers collect the unused excess food and deliver it to pantries, typically in the same community where they receive the donation.

County Harvest faces two primary obstacles, Palmisciano said. One is appealing to businesses to donate their excess inventory. Another hurdle is that some pantries have limited storage space. County Harvest has an ongoing relationship with DeCicco & Sons, operator of supermarkets throughout the Westchester area, which donates on a regular basis.

“Sometimes being able to convince potential food donors, or anybody really, that their excess food is needed, that they can donate it safely and that it will go to good use” is challenging, Palmisciano said. “Sometimes it takes a little bit of convincing.”

Family-to-Family, based in Hastings-on-Hudson, uses another approach. The organization enlists donors to anonymously adopt a family in one of several communities around Westchester and buy a monthly supermarket gift card, said Nancy Hennessee, its program director. Families in Hastings and Dobbs Ferry receive a gift card of between $50 to $200 a month, while households in Ossining, Mamaroneck and Yonkers get $70.

The organization also helps veterans who are food insecure as well as Holocaust survivors.

“It’s not meant to buy all their groceries,” Hennessee explained. “So, there are families that are getting and have food stamps, that may go to a food pantry, and it’s supplementary to help them the last week of the month when they’ve pretty much spent what they’ve got.”

Hilltop Hanover helping out

The Westchester County-owned and operated Hilltop Hanover Farm in Yorktown Heights has also been in the forefront of the hunger fight. Hilltop’s Farm Donation Program pledges at least 25% of all produce grown at the facility to be sent to its dozen partner organizations in northern Westchester, up from 10% two years ago, said Farm Director Adam Choper. Last year, Hilltop Hanover donated about 14,000 of the roughly 50,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables it grew.

The Pantry in Mount Kisco is the farm’s largest recipient because it serves 20 zip codes. But Hilltop Hanover also donates to the Community Center of Northern Westchester in Bedford Hills, among other places, Choper said. One of Hilltop Hanover’s key missions is to serve the community, having donated food for the past 15 years since it formed the nonprofit Friends of Hilltop Hanover Farm, he said.

“I would say it is part of our mission because we are a county farm, we are a subsidized farm,” said Choper. “The goal is not to make a profit; the goal is to serve the public good.”

Challenges abound

Many organizations serving food insecure households are wary that the situation may worsen. Trina Fontaine, executive director of The Pantry, said there were 31,000 visits 10 years ago; last fiscal year that total stood at more than 107,000 visits. While the organization and other pantries don’t typically deal directly with the government, policy actions that reduce resources will affect local pantries, she said. 

To expand its impact, The Pantry is looking into combining purchases with other organizations that could lower the prices for the food it buys and considering new ways to push food out to the community, due in part to The Pantry’s physical constraints. It operates out of the United Methodist Church in Mount Kisco.

Regardless, it all costs money.

“We’ll have to make a grant, and I think that will happen, but I think it’s a question of will the private sector step up to help us meet the fundraising goals to fill in the gap,” Fontaine said.

Martin Wilbur is a senior reporter at The Recorder. He has more than 30 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including having previously served as editor-in-chief of The Examiner.

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This editorially-independent series on hunger action is presented with support from the PepsiCo Foundation.