For the past seven years, Whole Foods Market and Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen have stood side-by-side in the quest for food justice in New York City. Like Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, Whole Foods Market seeks to challenge a status quo that prevents access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods and through the soup kitchen, Whole Foods Market has nourished hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who struggle with hunger and hardship.
The partnership started with the inception of Farm to Tray, the soup kitchen’s annual celebration of food and community. As a founding partner of the event, Whole Foods Market proudly provided ingredients – free of charge – to top New York chefs for the creation of sustainable, nutritious menus which mirror the soup kitchen’s vision for nourishing New Yorkers struggling with poverty, hunger, and homelessness.
Since then, Whole Foods Market has consistently demonstrated its alliance with the local community by offering in-kind donations of ethically sourced food, critical funding for general operating support, and hundreds of hours of volunteerism across dozens of Whole Foods Market employees.
“We are pleased to continue the ongoing support of Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, because they address the need for food security in the Manhattan community. With our new Manhattan West store opening only three blocks away from the soup kitchen, we’ve decided to increase our partnership level to sponsor all meal service for the entire month of September, narrowing in on increasing healthy food access in our hyper-local community,” states Lucia Albero, Marketing Manager from Whole Foods Market.
Even before the arrival of COVID-19 in New York City, over 1 million New Yorkers were experiencing food-insecurity and nearly 670,000 households in the state were just one missed paycheck or unexpected expense away from an eviction notice. The economic fallout of the pandemic has exacerbated the need for food and housing assistance, resulting in a 2,500% increase in demand for Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen’s pantry program. The soup kitchen is able to respond to the increased need in large part due to loyal support from individual donors and Good Corporate Citizen partners like Whole Foods Market.
