10 New York Charities Worth Supporting on Giving Tuesday

A man leaves the Bowery Mission, a nonprofit organization that serves New Yorkers suffering from homelessness, hunger and other crises, after receiving a free lunch at its campus in New York City.
Photo: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Amid the seasonal shopping frenzy of Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday, bargain-hungry New Yorkers should remember to set aside a few dollars today for Giving Tuesday, when local charities solicit donations to help those in need among us. I invite you to join me in sending cash to ten of the best New York-based organizations that help our neighbors in need of food, as well as groups that address the worst forms of serious mental illness and substance abuse.

“47 million Americans live in households that cannot afford enough food; This is not a small, niche problem. “Here in New York City, 1.2 million city residents don’t have enough food,” says Joel Berg Hunger Free America told me. “Hunger is often equated with homelessness in people’s minds. But 90 to 95 percent of the people who are hungry or food insecure in America and New York are not homeless, they are just poor.” Berg’s organization conducts research and advocacy on hunger at the national and local levels. “New York City still has the lowest school breakfast participation rate of any major city in the United States,” he says. “Every one of the last three or four mayors has promised to fix this, but they just haven’t.” Donate here.

About a quarter of our children suffer from food insecurity, but the problem is also acute among older New Yorkers confined to their homes. City food on wheels With the help of 18,000 volunteers and the support of donors, it provides food and companionship to 22,000 seniors five days a week. Citymeals recently completed an insightful report on the growing levels of hunger and loneliness in our midst. About 20 percent of the group’s customers are 90 years old or older; 400 of them are over 100 years old. “Think about what the city looked like 100 years ago and what they saw in their lifetime,” CEO Beth Shapiro told me. “Many of them built the city for us, and we need to be respectful and pay them back with a simple meal.” Donate here.

In keeping with tradition, a few family members and I spent part of Thanksgiving serving food with several hundred volunteers Bowery Missionthat has been helping hungry New Yorkers since 1879. “Last year, Bowery Mission served 27 percent more meals than the previous year. So the need for these meals is really evident right now,” the group’s CEO, James Winans, told me. “The city says it is hosting 130,000 people, which has never been the case before. So these are the highest numbers ever, and it’s a critical time for our city.” Donate here. Thanks to a matching grant, donations for Giving Tuesday will be doubled.

Central Brooklyn is lucky neighbors togethera soup kitchen and community center that provides food to families in Ocean Hill, Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant and also helps people find housing, legal advice and tax refunds. The group is always looking for volunteers and is currently trying to raise $100,000. All donations will be doubled through Giving Tuesday.

The Brooklyn Rescue Mission Urban Harvest Center fights hunger by operating a food pantry and urban garden in central Brooklyn and organizing advocacy groups to push for healthy products and government food assistance. The group is in the midst of a modest $40,000 fundraising campaign. Help take them to the extreme.

An estimated 17 percent of new immigrants to New York come from African countries and speak languages ​​such as Wolof, Bambara and Fulani, making it difficult for them to navigate life in New York. The Harlem-based company African Services Committee is an all-purpose organization founded in 1981 that assists newcomers from the African diaspora with housing, education, legal services and a food bank that supplies fruits, vegetables and non-perishable goods to 5,000 customers annually. Donate here.

The Community Service Society has been fighting against poverty since its beginnings in the 19th century, when it was still known as an association for improving the situation of the poor. The group excels at top-notch research, such as its regular Unheard Third survey, which asks lower-income New Yorkers what would improve their lives and then puts the results into action. Direct discussions with families led to CSS’s successful push to create the Fair Fares program, which allows lower-income riders to ride subways and buses at half price. Donate here.

Samaritan Daytop Village has a 60-year track record of helping New Yorkers overcome a variety of issues: The organization has developed an outstanding reputation for supporting chronic substance users who have also been diagnosed with a mental health disorder – the type of people who Many of us encounter it every day, but don’t know how I can help. I have met several inspiring success stories of people whose lives have been transformed by the remarkable staff and volunteers of this organization. Enter here.

Well house runs drop-in clubhouses for severely mentally ill New Yorkers. The idea dates back to the 1940s and is to create a non-threatening, low-pressure environment where people can interact with their peers and also talk to therapists and other staff who help with training, housing and daily meals are helpful. The approach is called “community as therapy,” and the organization is hosting a matching gift challenge for donations received by midnight on Giving Tuesday.

Almost everyone in New York’s jails and prisons will one day come home, and two venerable organizations that Fortune Society (founded in the 1960s) and the Osborne Association (with roots in the reform movements of the 19th century) work with men and women during and after incarceration to help them obtain skills, education, employment, housing, and treatment for substance abuse and/or mental illness. It is difficult and requires necessary work that requires more resources. Our tax dollars have already been spent to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate and incarcerate people; It only makes sense to spend a little more to complete the process and help people complete the rehabilitation process and leave violence and misconduct behind them for good.

“We employ people from these communities who have also experienced incarceration themselves. And that brings an incredible amount of trust and credibility to the work we do internally,” Jonathan Monsalve, Osborne’s president, told me. “I think we as a city are missing a huge opportunity,” said Stanley Richards, the president of Fortune. “We know that the majority of people who are incarcerated will return home to our community, and people are not coming home empty-handed. They (need) to come home with hope, with a connection to services, with some willingness and ability to build a better life, access housing, drug treatment, mental health treatment, job placement, job retention, job training and skills – all of those things , which we know makes a difference for people when they come home from prison.”

Donate to the Osborne Association and the Fortune Society.