Gotham Food Pantry Low-Income Public Housing Food Rescue Operations

Food waste remains a pressing issue in New York City, with millions of pounds of perfectly good food discarded each week. To address this crisis, we forged strategic partnerships with food retailers and dining establishments to rescue surplus food, diverting it from landfills to communities experiencing food insecurity. Once a food rescue schedule was in place, we mobilized volunteers and partner organizations to coordinate efficient transportation and distribution to pantry sites.

With a steadfast commitment to food equity, our distributions were centered in NYCHA communities, where three in five residents face food insecurity. By collaborating directly with Tenant Association Leaders and public housing residents, we ensured that rescued food reached those most in need while also fostering community ownership, leading to sustainable, resident-driven food access solutions.

Throughout this initiative, we are pursuing six key objectives: expanding food rescue operations across New York City; maximizing the volume of food recovered; strengthening community partnerships; improving access to nutritious foods; promoting public health; and enhancing data collection and impact measurement. Through this multi-faceted approach, we are reshaping the city’s food landscape—transforming excess into opportunity and waste into nourishment.

1. Strengthening NYCHA Partnerships and Leadership

We built strategic partnerships with nine NYCHA resident association leaders to expand our food pantry services into public housing complexes across Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens. Each site underwent a structured onboarding process to assess volunteer and transportation needs, food storage capacity, and interest in additional health and wellness initiatives. To strengthen local leadership, we identified two pantry leaders per site to serve as primary contacts for coordinating distribution events, ensuring smooth and efficient food access operations.

To formalize these collaborations, we implemented a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that clearly defined the roles and responsibilities of all parties involved in food rescue operations. This MOU was essential in setting expectations, standardizing best practices for data collection and communication, and reinforcing a shared commitment to our mission. In addition, Gotham Food Pantry staff equipped pantry leaders with essential materials, including flyers to promote food distribution events, volunteer recruitment forms, compliance documents, event sign-in sheets, and informational pamphlets about our organization and food rescue initiatives. By providing these resources, we are empowering pantry leaders with the tools needed to engage residents, organize distributions effectively, and build trust within their communities.

To ensure our approach was tailored to the unique needs of each NYCHA pantry site, we deployed two key data collection tools. First, we distributed intake forms to pantry leaders, capturing demographic data, operational capacity, logistical preferences, and community interests. This information allowed us to align food donations with each site’s storage capacity and the dietary needs of residents. Second, we implemented post-event surveys to be completed by pantry leaders after each distribution. These surveys allowed us to track attendance, assess the efficiency of deliveries, and gather feedback on the partnership. By analyzing real-time data, we continuously refined our food rescue strategy, adapting operations to maximize impact and better serve each community.

This structured, data-driven approach ensures that our food distribution efforts are not only effective but also responsive to the evolving needs of NYCHA residents. By fostering strong local leadership and leveraging real-time insights, we created a sustainable model for food rescue and distribution that prioritizes both efficiency and community empowerment.

2. Identify and collaborate with ten food establishments to schedule regular food pickups.

To expand our food recovery efforts, Gotham Food Pantry developed a strategic donor database centered on food retail businesses within a 10-mile radius of our partner sites. By prioritizing local businesses, we aim to reduce transportation burdens, streamline logistics, and keep surplus food within the community, reinforcing a sustainable, hyper-local food rescue model.

To strengthen donor outreach, we recently onboarded a dedicated staff member specializing in food sourcing and partnership development. With a background in marketing and food pantry startups, she is well-equipped to convey our mission and the value of food donations to prospective partners. To support her efforts, we developed a suite of informational resources addressing common concerns, donor incentives, and food donation guidelines. These materials included a detailed brochure outlining tax benefits under IRS Code 170(e)(3), the PATH Act, and the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, a comprehensive protocol guide for food rescue partnerships, and a categorized list of acceptable donation items to streamline the donation process.

In addition to our direct outreach, we collaborated with New York City-based NGOs such as City Harvest and Rap4Bronx to maximize food recovery opportunities. These organizations notify us when they encounter large-scale food rescues that exceed their capacity, allowing us to step in and redirect surplus food to our pantry sites.

In an effort to systematically track donor engagement and optimize our outreach strategy, we built donor profiles, recorded all outreach activities, and documented research findings for resource development. We also monitored key metrics, including the number of new establishments providing regular food donations, to assess the effectiveness of our efforts. This data-driven approach enables us to prioritize businesses most likely to offer consistent, high-quality contributions, as well as refine our outreach strategy, and cultivate long-term partnerships that strengthen our city’s food rescue network.

3. Ensure safe food handling practices totaling 2,500 pounds per week in the first 60 days

To maintain food safety standards, each pantry site was asked to have at least two certified food handlers. Volunteers received access to NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Food Protection Course, a 15-hour online training followed by an in-person exam to obtain certification. To remove financial barriers and encourage participation, Gotham Food Pantry covers the certification fees, a commitment formally outlined in our partnership memorandum of understanding (MOU). By integrating these expectations into the MOU, we empower pantry leaders to embrace food safety protocols and strengthen compliance across all partner sites. As a result, many pantry partners welcome the opportunity to incorporate formal food safety training, recognizing its value in enhancing operations and community trust.

To ensure compliance and measure impact, we track two key data points: the total pounds of food distributed at sites with at least two certified food handlers and the number of volunteers who successfully complete the certification process. These metrics are essential for evaluating the sustainability of our food rescue efforts and reinforcing safe food handling practices across our network.

By systematically monitoring food handler certification rates, we ensure that rescued food is stored, transported, and distributed in accordance with health and safety standards. This approach not only minimizes the risk of foodborne illness but also bolsters confidence in our operations among residents, volunteers, and food donors, further solidifying Gotham Food Pantry’s reputation as a reliable and responsible food distribution network.

4. Increasing Food Sourcing by 25% Each Quarter

As Gotham Food Pantry continues to expand its impact, we remain committed to strengthening food sourcing efforts within the community. Currently, we partner with 12 donation partners to sustain our existing food supply. To achieve our goal of a 25% quarterly increase in food recovery, we have complemented donor recruitment with a strategic initiative that assesses the nutritional needs at each pantry site. Using USDA guidelines and demographic data from NYCHA complexes, we calculated the total amount of food required at each site to ensure residents receive adequate nutrition.

To determine the amount of food necessary to meet dietary guidelines at our NYCHA pantry sites, we integrated data from partner intake forms, the 2020-2025 USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and FDA-published nutritional data. First, we established average weights for the recommended daily intake of each food group, accounting for differences in food density. This is particularly relevant for vegetables, fruits, and dairy, as USDA guidelines measure these categories in cups rather than weight. To standardize serving weights, we used FDA nutritional data for 20 fruits and 20 vegetables, averaging these values and converting them to pounds to align with our existing food sourcing and tracking methods. A similar approach is applied to the dairy category using USDA MyPlate equivalents. The final calculations for individual dietary intake per food group are outlined in a structured table for reference.

Next, we multiplied the calculated daily intake per food group by the number of child, adult, and senior residents at each NYCHA pantry site. With site-specific nutritional needs established, we track the weight of food deliveries to pantries, estimating the pounds of produce, grains, dry goods, protein, dairy, and prepared meals distributed at each event. For dry goods, we allocate 50% of weight to protein and 50% to grains, while the weight of prepared meals is evenly distributed across the four major food groups.

Integrating nutritional needs into food sourcing is a new approach for Gotham Food Pantry, but it provides valuable insight for prioritizing donor recruitment. By identifying which sites have the greatest nutritional gaps, we can strategically engage nearby businesses to fill those needs. Additionally, this data-driven approach helps us recognize and address gaps in the diversity of our food sourcing efforts, ensuring we supplement all aspects of residents’ diets and work toward a more equitable and health-conscious food distribution system.

5. Recording Waste Reduction and Increased Food Security

We systematically record the amount of food donated from each business in our portal management system, ensuring accurate tracking of all contributions. This data is then entered into the ReFed Impact Calculator by staff to measure key environmental benefits, including reductions in CO2 emissions, water savings, and the number of meals recovered. Additionally, we develop and deploy surveys to monitor attendance at distribution events and assess the frequency with which community members experience food insecurity.

To evaluate our environmental impact, we input the total weight of rescued and distributed food into the ReFed Impact Calculator, quantifying the tangible sustainability benefits of our operations. Once food rescue operations are firmly established at each site and pantry leaders are confident in managing distributions, we introduce event surveys to track attendance and gather community feedback. Moving forward, we plan to implement bi-monthly food security surveys to gain deeper insight into how our food rescues directly benefit residents.

These data-driven methods allow us to measure both the environmental and social impact of our food rescue efforts, ensuring that we not only divert surplus food from landfills but also enhance food security in the communities we serve. By continuously refining our tracking and assessment strategies, we strengthen the effectiveness and sustainability of our operations.

6. Build upon our in-progress end-to-end platform solution that supports food recovery for all stakeholders 

A developer has been working on our Gotham Food Pantry Portal to accommodate the growing data streams. As Gotham has grown and built partnerships with new donors and pantry sites, improving the portal system has been crucial for coordinating food rescues and tracking data. The platform is capable of aiding in the recruitment of volunteers and donors as well as issuing tax receipts. The platform is simple, allowing both volunteers and donors to enter data they are collecting.

To drive our platform developments, Gotham’s software developer has been working closely with staff to identify hurdles in their daily work or data collection. After fielding suggestions for portal developments, and identifying common workflows for coordinating food rescues, our developer researched the best platforms for donor and volunteer management.