East Village Loves NYC seeks a new commercial kitchen to help feed NYC’s food insecure

File photo by Stacie Joy 

East Village Loves NYC — the local volunteer group formed in the spring of 2020 to feed people in need during the pandemic — is looking for a commercial kitchen to use to continue their mission to help end food insecurity in New York.

Since June 2020, EV Loves NYC, now a 501c3 nonprofit organization, has prepared meals from the kitchen at the Sixth Street Community between Avenue B and Avenue C.

Here's more via an Instagram post:

The need for food and love in our city has only gotten greater and we're still operating out of a setup the size of a suburban home's kitchen. (Don't get us wrong: We are forever grateful to Sixth Street. They opened their doors to us and gave us keys, no questions asked, in June 2020 when we were just a small group of friends, not yet a not-for-profit org.) You are our best resource, as always. Can you think of any leads? Corporate kitchens? Kitchens in event spaces or church halls or arts venues? Anything?

You can find contact info on the EV Loves NYC website here... or DM them on Instagram.

In the spring of 2020, a handful of friends got together to prepare meals for neighbors. Early on, Ali Sahin, the owner of C&B Cafe on Seventh Street, donated his kitchen on Mondays for the group to cook its meals. By June 2020, they had outgrown the space and started assembling deliveries at the Sixth Street Community Center between Avenue B and Avenue C. 

Eventually, the group became known as East Village Loves NYC, with volunteers in the four digits. In their first year, the group cooked over 100,000 meals, not to mention donated 325,000 pounds of groceries and 7,000 pounds of pantry bags.

 

Previously on EV Grieve:
• These East Village residents are helping feed families in Queens during the COVID-19 crisis

EV Loves NYC looks for support and a partnership with the city to aid in feeding asylum seekers

Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy 

Note: Faces of the asylum seekers have been blurred 

The situation at the reticketing center at the former St. Brigid School hasn't improved since the last time we visited. 

There are still almost 1,000 people being processed at the center on Seventh Street and Avenue B daily, and few shelter placements. Asylum seekers who have received their 30- or 60-day notice evicting them from their shelter wait in long lines, sometimes overnight, to be given a wristband and hopefully temporary placement or a cot assignment.

The overwhelming majority do not get placed and can opt to go to Bathgate in the Bronx, where they may be able to sleep on the floor, or, if it’s a Code Blue or weather event, a center in Gramercy, where they can stay but are only offered chairs overnight. They can also opt for oneway reticketing anywhere else in the world, but this does not seem to be a popular choice. 

Meals are also an ongoing crisis for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, with city no-bid contract providers often offering spoiled or moldy food or items that can't be eaten by Muslims. 

Last week, The New York Times reported that DocGo, which has a $432 million no-bid contract with the city, discarded more than 70,000 uneaten meals between Oct. 22 and Nov. 22. The Post spoke with asylum seekers who said the meals — which DocGo charges the city $11 each for — were unhealthy and inedible.

"The breakfast and lunch is so cold we can't eat it, so it gets thrown in the trash," said one mother.

Mutual aid groups like the volunteer-run East Village Loves NYC have been working to provide hot meals as often as possible, with Sunday's distribution providing a choice of vegan sweet potato curry, balsamic-glazed chicken or beef meatball stew with side slaw Halal meals to just shy of 600 people at the site. Also available are hot coffee, snacks, and socks — desperately needed in the cold weather. (Although fewer than the last time I attended a distribution, many people still wore chancletas or sandals.)

Almost everyone I spoke to mentioned being hungry, often pantomiming by rubbing their stomachs and gesturing for food. In Spanish, women gathered around me and asked for help with shoes, underwear, warm clothes, blankets, or tents. 

A group of 20 women were escorted to the nearby Sixth Street Community Center between Avenue B and Avenue C, where they were offered donated clothing.

Sasha Allenby, co-founder of East Village Loves New York, explained the numbers game of fundraising to provide food to those in need. Since the long lines at the reticketing center at St Brigid's started three weeks ago, the nonprofit has already delivered 3,300 free meals plus fruit and coffee, costing them over $10,000. 

"This would have cost the city over $40,000 considering they pay their contractors between $11 to $14 to provide a sub-par meal," Allenby said. "Since the asylum seekers began arriving last year, we've spent around $60,000 on providing free meals. We care about every asylum seeker and want to keep helping. Still, at the end of the day, we're the little guy on a shoestring budget raised by small donations from the community, and we can only continue helping if we are supported by the City."

Aside from feeding the asylum seekers on Sunday, East Village Loves NYC partnered with multiple organizations this week to help provide hungry New Yorkers with meals in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. (Find a list here.)

We contacted David Schmid, deputy commissioner of external affairs of the NYC Office of Emergency Management. He said that "the guests were extremely appreciative (as are we)" of the meals and assistance East Village Loves NYC provided. 

Schmid said they have a meeting set up with Mammad Mahmoodi, co-founder of the group, tomorrow for the city to discuss how they can continue the partnership. 

"We'll walk him through the Strengthening Communities program in the hopes that they'll apply for our next cohort in 2024," Schmid said. "In the meantime, we've also discussed using some private funds that we've raised internally to make a monetary donation to EV Loves NYC to recognize their contribution and ongoing support. It will be a modest donation for now, but we certainly want to acknowledge their incredible work while we explore how to best formalize and sustain the relationship going forward."

NYCEM Commissioner Zach Iscol mentioned the partnership in the Dec. 15 public safety update at City Hall, and you can hear his remarks about EV Loves NYC and the Strengthening Communities program around the 16:30-minute mark here. 

Curious about how you can help? EV Loves NYC is hosting a sock drive. Details here. 

Previously on EV Grieve: 

• City officials help facilitate successful meal handouts for asylum seekers in the East Village 

• Distro disaster: City rejects warm homemade meals for hungry asylum seekers in the East Village, opts to serve moldy rolls