CCNY continues its tradition of sharing holiday blessings with the community

The City College of New York’s and the Foundation for City College’s ongoing outreach initiatives to provide fresh, nutritious meals to those in need continues to expand, including an effort that resulted in hundreds of meals being distributed during the holiday season.

Starting in September, and for each succeeding Thursday, Benny’s Pantry provided meals in the NAC Plaza. The meals were sponsored by the Migrant Kitchen Initiative, an organization dedicated to ending the hunger crisis in New York City by reducing food insecurity at the community level. The CCNY and Migrant Kitchen Initiative distributed an additional 200 meals to the surrounding community as part of World Food Day on Oct. 16.

On Nov. 20, Benny’s Pantry partnered with the Undergraduate Student Government to distribute an additional 200 meals directly to the student body. On Dec. 7, Migrant Kitchen Initiative and CCNY volunteers prepared and delivered 200 additional meals to the entire campus community. For this meal distribution, the volunteers were joined by one of Migrant Kitchen Initiative’s co-founders, Jaclinn Tanney.

The Migrant Kitchen Initiative, which entered into a partnership with Benny’s last year, also donated 100 pounds of shelf-stable food to the Pantry.

Five hundred twenty-five meals, including vegetarian options, were offered to community partners for Thanksgiving on Nov. 20, in partnership with Black-owned school food management company Red Rabbit. The individually wrapped meals were prepared and delivered to the community partners, which included PSS Manhattanville Center, Wilson Major Morris Community Center, Greater File Chapel Baptist Church, and Living Redemption. The meals were also available at The Towers at CCNY and the CCNY Facilities Office.

Benny’s Pantry got its start in a small office in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership in 2016. Support from the Foundation for City College and an additional $20,000 seed grant from the Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation in 2019 enabled a move to the North Academic Center quad. It has since expanded to three additional locations: The Towers, the CCNY Facilities Department and the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education, CCNY's downtown campus.

Since then, Benny’s Pantry has operated full-time, with an all-volunteer team, throughout the pandemic, even opening its doors to all CUNY groups, including students, staff, and faculty.

The volunteer staff serves a range of 25 to 100 people per week. Food is purchased from Amazon and Costco, with donations coming from the New York Food Bank, the New York City Emergency Food Assistance Program, and individuals.

“These partnerships are vital to our continuing commitment to providing meals to those in need, especially at this time of year,” said Vice President for Institutional Advancement and Communications Dee Dee Mozeleski, who is also the executive director of The Foundation for City College Inc. “We greatly appreciate our partners’ expanded support of our efforts to share food with even more members of our campus and greater Harlem community.”

About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi (now Lightcast) puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. This year, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.