Starting Monday, the Bronx will no longer be the only borough in New York City without a kosher food distribution site as part of the City’s Get Food program. After weeks of advocacy from Bronx elected officials, the City has agreed to distribute free kosher grab-and-go meals at P.S. 24 in the the borough starting Monday, May 11, opening the City’s prevailing meal distribution program to observant residents in the borough for the first time since the program’s launch.

 

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Council Member Andrew Cohen had been advocating for kosher food offerings in the Northwest Bronx to help serve observant residents experiencing food insecurity, lobbying the Mayor’s Office and “Food Czar” Commissioner Kathryn Garcia through emails and phone calls. Elected officials representing the Northwest Bronx also sent a joint letter amplifying the request for kosher meal availability in the Bronx earlier this week.

 

Cohen and Dinowitz celebrated the announcement of the P.S. 24 site, which was not previously a designated Meal Hub, as a new grab-and-go kosher food site, bringing the citywide total to eighteen sites across five boroughs. There are tens of thousands of kosher-observant households in the Northwest Bronx and unemployment figures are expected to exceed 20% in New York City by next month.

 

Kosher households in need are currently being served by a patchwork of kosher food assistance providers and Jewish-affiliated nonprofit organizations. However resources are limited and programs lack the capacity to accommodate the type of same-day requests that the City’s  Get Food program can facilitate. This new site will help relieve the pressure on these service providers that have been struggling to meet the increase in demand and myriad of new challenges impacting food banks and pantries across New York.

 

In a joint statement, Dinowitz and Cohen wrote, “This is the right decision. We are grateful to Commissioner Garcia and the Mayor’s Office for helping make sure that people in our community do not have to choose between their faith and their food. The addition of this new kosher meal site in Riverdale is an important first step to address the need among the large observant community here in the Bronx”.

 

The statement continued, “We are eager to continue working with the Mayor and Commissioner Garcia to ensure observant Bronx residents experiencing food insecurity are not left out of the important programs available to New Yorkers. The current crisis has escalated food insecurity among residents to unprecedented levels and emergency food assistance providers in the Bronx are stretched thin; the City’s work to support their services are essential to ensuring that no one goes hungry during this difficult time”.

 

Norwood News reported previously that the Kingsbridge Armory had been designated as a food distribution center in the Bronx to serve the local community in need of urgent food supplies, and that specific grab-and-go food distribution hubs had been set up at various schools across the borough. However, neither halal nor kosher meals were available in the Bronx at that stage, though they were in other parts of the City.

 

We later reported that halal meals had become available at some City sites to coincide with the month of Ramadan, though still not in the Bronx. In the meantime, halal meals have been made available in the Bronx at the following sites:

• PS/IS 194 – 2365 Waterbury Ave, The Bronx, NY 10462
• Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School – 1021 Jennings Street, Bronx, NY 10460
• PS 47 – 1794 E 172nd St, The Bronx, NY 10472
• PS 106 Parkchester – 1514 Olmstead Avenue Bronx, NY 10462
• MS 127 (JHS 127) – 1560 Purdy St, The Bronx, NY 10462

 

More information on accessing free food, in general, in the City can be obtained by clicking on the following link or by calling 311. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/food/free-meals