Stop & Shop’s Turkey Express Program Donated 2,000 Thanksgiving Turkeys to Island Harvest Food Bank and LI Cares Inc.

Stop & Shop’s Turkey Express program donated 1,000 Thanksgiving Turkeys each to Island Harvest Food Bank and to Long Island Cares Inc. The Harry Chapin Food Bank.

Stop & Shop’s Turkey Express program will deliver more than 21,500 turkeys to hunger relief organizations in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island this holiday season.

The two Long Island food banks issued a report on the increased rate of food insecurity on Long Island since the start of the pandemic in March.

Island Harvest Food Bank:

·Island Harvest has seen an overall increase of 47% of food distributed throughout LI since March (this is equivalent to 4.1 million meals or 5 million pounds)

·Island Harvest has helped more than 300,000 families since March.

·Island Harvest has hosted over 1,000 distribution events from Elmont and Far Rockaway to the East End every week (targeting from 100 families to 4,000).

·Island Harvest has hosted more than 20 large scale distributions for 20,000 residents of Nassau County over a three-month period.

·The Island Harvest to Home Delivery program grew to 900 (seniors, veterans and people impacted and homebound due to the virus) in one month.

·Island Harvest has opened up two donated warehouses and a new program to build family food boxes (80,000 built and distributed from march to October)

·Island Harvest helped approximately 2,000 families enroll in SNAP.

Long Island Cares Inc., The Harry Chapin Food Bank:

·Long Island Cares reports a 43.1% increase in food insecurity vs. pre- COVID.

·Long Island Cares has assisted over 172,000 Long Islanders since March.

·Long Island Cares provided emergency food assistance to more than 111,000 Long Islanders who had not previously received assistance.

·Long Island Cares has distributed more than 12.6 million pounds of food since March.

·Long Island Cares has distributed more than 10.5 million meals to Long Islanders in need in just seven months.

·Long Island Cares’ food trucks have provided a grab-n-go breakfast for 5,946 children in seven months.

·More than 81,000 meals have been provided to 4,497 seniors during the past seven months due to COVID-19.