Government Relations & Public Education

Food Bank For New York City works to educate members of the public and government officials at the city, state and federal levels to enlist their support in combating food poverty. As one of the largest food banks in the country, the Food Bank works with legislators and government agencies to develop new and improve existing policies and programs that support the city's anti-hunger community and New Yorkers in need. Our public education helps bridge the gap between policy making and implementation by including community members in this work.

The Food Bank connects with legislators, government agencies, community-based organizations and other groups by meeting with legislators and policy makers, producing educational materials, delivering testimony to legislative bodies and collaborating with governmental bodies to assist in developing programmatic and policy improvements.

In addition, the Food Bank works to strengthen the anti-hunger community's impact on legislation and policy through collaborative efforts. These include:

• Eat to Learn Initiative, a campaign to increase access to school and summer meals, including promotion of in-classroom breakfast and universal school meals in New York City public schools and collaboration with other organizations on policy development, advocacy and community outreach strategies. 
• Borough Hunger Task Force Initiative, launched by the Food Bank in June 2005 to bring the city's hunger-relief community together on an ongoing basis, strengthening the emergency food network's ability to organize locally and develop long-term strategies for eliminating hunger;
• Anti-Hunger Policy Platform for New York State and City 2007–2012, the product of a collective of city and state anti-hunger organizations, including emergency food programs, convened and facilitated by the Food Bank to address specific city, state and federal hunger-related government policies and programs; and
• The Food Bank's Annual Agency Conference, which brings together our network of approximately 1,000 community-based member programs and other hunger-relief organizations to strengthen the hunger-relief community's response to food poverty.

Visit our Advocacy Center to learn how you can get involved! For more information, contact Triada Stampas, Director of Government Relations & Public Education.