Queens Borough President + Elected Officials Celebrate Commonpoint Queens Milestone of One Million Pounds of Food
Queens, NY — Commonpoint Queens – formerly known as the Samuel Field Y and Central Queens Y – has now surpassed one million pounds of food distributed from its two emergency food pantries since the start of the pandemic. Elected officials, including Queens Borough President Sharon Lee, Congressman Tom Suozzi, Senator John Liu, Assemblyman Edward Braunstein, Council Member Barry Grodenchik, and representatives from Congresswoman Grace Meng’s office joined with staff members from Met Council on Jewish Poverty and Commonpoint Queens to acknowledge this milestone at the Commonpoint Queens Tanenbaum Family Pool on Tuesday, October 27th.
“Today is not a celebration, our greatest need is still ahead of us,” said Commonpoint Queens CEO Danielle Ellman. “We would not be standing here today without so many incredible community partners and so many brave staff and volunteers who hand-delivered food packages, but the reality is that the need is far from over.”
To date, Commonpoint Queens has distributed over 850,000 meals to community members all across Queens, and is on pace to provide approximately 1.4 million pounds of food in 2020. The human services organization opened its Digital Food Pantry in Forest Hills in September 2017 in partnership with UJA Federation of New York and the Met Council on Jewish Poverty, they opened up a second emergency food pantry at their Tanenbaum Family Pool in Little Neck this Spring as a response to the pandemic.
“In such a dangerous time, Commonpoint’s staff and volunteers risked their lives to get food delivered to our home-bound elders and families,” said Queens Borough President Sharon Lee. “This has truly been an amazing team effort, so we declare October 27th as Commonpoint Queens Day.”
PHOTO: Commonpoint Queens’ staff preparing hundreds of meals for delivery
“Thank you, thank you, thank you Commonpoint Queens for delivering so many meals to the elderly and other vulnerable neighbors in our community. Working together and looking after neighbors and one another, we will get through this.” United States Congressman Thomas Suozzi.
Photo: Congressman Thomas Suozzi delivering meals
“It was my honor to volunteer for Commonpoint Queens delivering food to residents of Eastern Queens,” said Council Member Barry S. Grodenchik. “I thank Commonpoint for the hundreds of thousands of meals that it has delivered to seniors across Queens County and for all that the agency continues to do. I have been a leading advocate for emergency food throughout my tenure in the council, and I pledge to continue to work toward securing the funds that help feed every New Yorker who needs food assistance.”
If you or someone you know is in need of food or other critical services including benefit enrollment, employment assistance, personal or business loans, visit www.commonpointqueens.org/
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More About Commonpoint Queens
Commonpoint Queens is a social services organization that meets the diverse and evolving needs in the borough of Queens —a place where people of all ages and backgrounds come together to find support, access opportunities, and build connections to the community throughout their lives. To learn more, go to www.commonpointqueens.org.
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P.S. – In honor of the delivery of our one millionth pound of food, we asked our Learning Bridges students how much food they think one million pounds of food is equal to. We hope their creative responses will inspire you to support our food pantry and help us continue to #TransformALife by becoming a Donor of Distinction and donating at commonpointqueens.org/donate by October 30.
