Keyword/Tag: new york

Brighter Bites & Key Partners Relaunch in NYC Schools, Delivering 1M lbs of Free Produce to Children

Posted on November 2, 2020 by -

Media Contact:

Melanie Button, Regional Program Director

melanie.button@brighterbites.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brighter Bites Relaunches in NYC Schools to Deliver 1 Million Pounds of Free Produce to Children and Families

Brighter Bites, the Connected Chef, D’Arrigo New York, and City Harvest join forces to impact 2,600+ families across 12 schools

New York, NY (November 2, 2020) – Brighter Bites returned to NYC schools in October with a promise to deliver 1 million pounds of free, fresh fruits and vegetables, along with nutrition education resources, to children and their families despite the ongoing pandemic. The evidence-based program feeds with impact by pairing 20-25 pounds boxes of produce with nutrition education for parents and their children. The program will serve thousands of families at participating schools in Woodside, Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Brownsville, Bushwick, Manhattan Valley, and Hamilton Heights.

Brighter Bites relaunched its program with the Connected Chef, D’Arrigo New York, and City Harvest on the heels of a new report showing how the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated and exacerbated persistent food access problems throughout New York City. Communities that lack consistent access to healthy affordable food concurrently experience high rates of food insecurity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and complications from COVID-19. The Brighter Bites program responds to these concerns with a targeted, school based program that focuses on addressing the needs of families safely.

City Harvest has committed 30,000 pounds of produce per week for the program with Hunt’s Point based distributor D’Arrigo New York committing an additional weekly donation of hard to source family favorites such as bananas, pears, peaches and more. “We are thrilled to be teaming back up with Brighter Bites to service the city that we love.” said Gabriela D’Arrigo, VP of Marketing and Communications at D’Arrigo New York. “With all the uncertainty that 2020 has brought, access to healthy nutrition should not be another ‘thing’ to add to the list of concerns for families.”

Distributions began on October 7th and will continue weekly throughout the school year. During the first weeks of the program families took home 10-12 items, including tomatoes, bananas, onion, pears, apples, cauliflower, cucumber, celery, peaches, winter squash, and more. Distributions are planned to continue regardless of whether or not schools remain open for in-person learning. As part of the program, Brighter Bites supports a ‘train the trainer’ model in which teachers teach in-class (or virtual) nutrition lessons. Additionally, parents utilize the Brighter Bites App to access a vast library of recipes, tip sheets, and produce how-to’s, ensuring that they have the knowledge and skills to incorporate the produce into home cooked meals and snacks.

“The ground is shifting under parents’ feet every day,” said Melanie Button, Regional Program Director, Brighter Bites. “Families can rely on our program for ready access to fresh, immune-boosting foods throughout the year. The communities we serve have been especially hard hit by COVID-19 and the food we provide is more critical than ever.”

The produce first travels to the Long Island City headquarters of The Connected Chef where it is packed into family friendly boxes before it is received at each school. During a typical year, this packing would have happened via parent volunteers at each school. Due to COVID-19, large groups of parents cannot convene at schools to do so. The Connected Chef’s experience with their LifeLine delivery program, which provides weekly deliveries of nutrient-dense foods to Western Queens residents, made them the perfect choice to be hired by Brighter Bites to oversee the produce packing and delivery. As an added benefit, funds from the Brighter Bites program will allow The Connected Chef to build out their distribution center as a resource for Queens and Brooklyn mutual aid groups.

Brighter Bites is seeking contributions to sustain this work over the full 2020-2021 school year. Those interested in learning more or making a donation may visit www.brighterbites.org/fund/newyork. A donation of just $15 provides a month’s worth of produce for a participating family.

About Brighter Bites:

Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that creates communities of health through fresh food with the goal of changing behavior among children and their families to prevent obesity and achieve long-term health. Brighter Bites is an evidence-based, multi-component elementary school, preschool, and summer camp program that utilizes reliable access to fruits and vegetables, nutrition education, and consistent exposure to recipes and messages that feature fresh food. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has provided more than 40 million pounds of produce and millions of nutrition education materials to more than 475,000 individuals (including teachers) in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, and Southwest Florida. To learn more about Brighter Bites visit www.brighterbites.org.

Press Release: Brighter Bites and Queens Together Distribute Produce to Thousands in Queens

Posted on May 5, 2020 by -

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brighter Bites and Queens Together Distribute Produce Care Packages to Thousands of Families in Need during COVID-19 Crisis

The Connected Chef and City Harvest join the effort to help Queens, NY communities

Houston, TX (May 5, 2020) – Brighter Bites, along with Queens Together, The Connected Chef and City Harvest, have launched an emergency initiative aimed to ensure that current Brighter Bites’ Queens-area families continue to receive the produce they were receiving before COVID-19 impacted its community. This program includes door delivery service, which fills the communities’ needs without putting families at risk and disrupting their everyday routines.

Distributions began on April 28 and will continue weekly as long as necessary. City Harvest has pledged 40,000 pounds of produce for distribution to families, including those in Jackson Heights, Woodside, Astoria, and East Elmhurst. All of these Queens neighborhoods have been especially hard hit during the pandemic.

“Brighter Bites NYC is incredibly proud to partner with these local New York organizations to distribute nutritious food to families suffering during this time,” said Melanie Button, Regional Program Director, Brighter Bites. “As an organization, we were adamant that school closures would not stop us from continuing to feed families but we knew that we would need to shift our model. We were impressed with what Queens Together was accomplishing and we reached out to see if they could support. They turned out to be the perfect partner to connect us with the right people and places to get this work done. That initial email sparked an incredible partnership and an amazing, community based, ground operation. Our work has been described as “grassroots but gargantuan” and we couldn’t agree more.”

Prior to the partnership, The Connected Chef served others in need in the community through their LifeLine delivery program. Their expertise in running the LifeLine program made them the perfect choice to execute a produce delivery program of this scale. The program will serve the 2,000 families who are enrolled in the Brighter Bites program at six schools in Queens. The program also aims to support the local economy, by re-employing chefs and cooks who have lost viable sources of food due to shortened hours and job losses to pack and deliver the produce.

Brighter Bites is a nonprofit with the mission of creating communities of health through fresh food. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the organization served over 25,000 families nationwide enrolled in the program across 100 schools, with each family receiving 25 lbs. of fresh produce and nutrition education on a weekly basis. Then COVID-19 hit, schools shuttered, and families lost access to this fresh produce they were dependent on for daily nourishment.

“Queens Together is so pleased to be a part of this initiative,” said Jonathan Forgash of Queens Together. “We look forward to continuing this program and finding new ways to identify, package, and deliver nutritious food to those in desperate need across Queens.

 

About Brighter Bites:

Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that creates communities of health through fresh food with the goal of changing behavior among children and their families to prevent obesity and achieve long-term health. Brighter Bites is an evidence-based, multi-component elementary school, preschool, and summer camp program that utilizes reliable access to fruits and vegetables, nutrition education, and consistent exposure to recipes and messages that feature fresh food. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has provided more than 27 million pounds of produce and millions of nutrition education materials to more than 275,000 individuals (including teachers) in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, and Southwest Florida. To learn more about Brighter Bites visit www.brighterbites.org.

 

About Queens Together:

Queens Together is reimagining our local food industry as the catalyst for nourishing our communities in crisis. We create, implement and manage novel “Last mile” systems that address unprecedented hunger and harm to local economies. We do this by using our roots in the food business and history of community activism to see issues on the ground and activate solutions. The initiative was formed in early March by chef activist Jonathan Forgash and Sunnyside Business Improvement District executive director Jaime-Faye Bean. In its first six weeks, they have delivered over 20,000 meals to hospital workers, military medical personnel, and people facing food insecurity across Queens. To learn more about Queens Together visit https://queenstogether.org.

This story was published in the following publications:

Queens Students Eating Healthier

Posted on September 27, 2018 by -

 

 

Brighter Bites partners with City Harvest in New York City to implement our program at several sites in Queens. The Queens Chronicle profiled Brighter Bites in an article, reporting on our program’s mission to help families eat healthier with free fresh produce, nutritional education, and fun food experiences. Read more about it here!

Press Release: City Harvest and D’Arrigo Bros. of New York Team Up

Posted on July 16, 2018 by -

Media Contact:
Stefanie Cousins
Stefanie.Cousins@brighterbites.org
919-360-4156

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NYC’s Largest Food Rescue Organization and Top Produce Company Team up with Nutrition Education Nonprofit to Address Childhood Obesity and Encourage Healthy Eating Habits in New York City This Summer

City Harvest and D’Arrigo Bros. of New York bring fresh fruits and vegetables to families in Queens through a new partnership with national nonprofit Brighter Bites 

New York, NY (July 16, 2018) – Food rescue nonprofit City Harvest and produce company D’Arrigo Bros. of New York today launched a summer-long program in New York City with Brighter Bites, a nonprofit organization that tackles childhood obesity by providing low-income families with free fresh produce and nutrition education. This effort builds on the three organizations’ similar work during the school year to provide free produce at schools with students living in underserved communities, and will increase access to produce for more than 400 families through programs at three summer camps in Queens.

“We believe that increasing access to healthy, affordable food is the key to helping all New Yorkers become food secure,” said Kate MacKenzie, City Harvest’s Senior Director of Programs. “Studies have shown children need to be offered a new food 10-15 times before they’ll develop a taste for it. For many working families in New York City that are struggling to make ends meet, however, experimenting with new foods like fresh produce isn’t always an option. City Harvest is excited to be partnering with Brighter Bites and D’Arrigo to decrease the risk that comes with trying new foods, and help families build healthy habits over the summer.”

According to City Harvest, more than 1.2 million New Yorkers face hunger every year, including nearly one in five New York City children. In Queens alone, over a quarter million residents are food insecure. Through City Harvest and Brighter Bites’ produce distribution and nutrition education programming, parents have the ability to learn which healthy foods their children have a taste for, and the recipe cards and tip sheets that come with the produce each week help them prepare meals in fun and nutritious ways.

Brighter Bites and City Harvest are kicking off programs at three summer camps in Queens that will provide more than 50,000 pounds of produce, along with kid-friendly bilingual recipes and tip sheets in English and Spanish on topics ranging from “Eating the Rainbow” to how bringing kids into the kitchen to help with meal prep makes them more invested in trying new foods.

Each week participating families will receive two bags containing approximately 50 servings of eight to 12 different fresh produce items along with the nutritional educational materials. D’Arrigo is generously donating a third of the fresh fruits and vegetables each week, with two-thirds coming from City Harvest.

“Every family wants to provide the best for their children to help them grow healthy and strong,” said Gabriela D’Arrigo, Vice President of Marketing for D’Arrigo. “As a family-owned business here in New York, we’re proud to partner with Brighter Bites and City Harvest to help our neighbors across the city have greater access to fresh produce.”

Since launching in 2012, Brighter Bites has distributed more than 17 million pounds of produce and hundreds of thousands of nutrition education materials to 200,000 individuals from more than 40,000 families through schools and summer camps in New York City, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Southwest Florida, and Washington, D.C. Brighter Bites uses a simple formula for introducing healthy lifestyles to families: produce distribution, nutrition education, and a fun food experience that includes sampling a recipe of the week to see just how great produce can taste. In New York City, parents and community volunteers will pack bags of fresh fruits and veggies for families and teachers to take home for six weeks this summer.

“We know that far too many parents struggle to access and provide their children with fresh produce, particularly during the summer months when kids are out of school,” said Brighter Bites Executive Director Samuel Newman. “Since Brighter Bites established our New York City program in 2017 with City Harvest and D’Arrigo, we’ve been blown away by the kids’ response to trying different kinds of fresh fruits and veggies–often for the first time–and we’re so pleased to be continuing this important work throughout the summer months with these same partners.”

Brighter Bites measures the outcomes of its program to determine impact. Research shows the Brighter Bites model provides consistent opportunities for children and their families to practice healthier behaviors in school and at home:

  • 98% of Brighter Bites parents report their children eating more fruits and vegetables while participating in the Brighter Bites program.
  • Of those, 74% said they maintained that increased level of consumption after Brighter Bites ended.

About Brighter Bites:
Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that creates communities of health through fresh food with the goal of changing behavior among children and their families to prevent obesity and achieve long-term health. Brighter Bites is an evidence-based, multi-component elementary school, preschool, and summer camp program that utilizes reliable access to fruits and vegetables, nutrition education, and consistent exposure to recipes and messages that feature fresh food. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has provided more than 17 million pounds of produce and 100,000s of nutrition education materials to more than 40,000 families and teachers in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, and Southwest Florida. To learn more about Brighter Bites visit BrighterBites.org.

About City Harvest
City Harvest is New York City’s largest food rescue organization, helping to feed the more than 1.2 million New Yorkers who are struggling to put meals on their tables. We will rescue 61 million pounds of food this year and deliver it, free of charge, to hundreds of food pantries, soup kitchens, and other community partners across the five boroughs. Our programs help food-insecure New Yorkers access nutritious food that fits their needs and desires; increase partners’ capacity; and strengthen the local food system, building a path to a food-secure future for all New Yorkers. To learn more, visit CityHarvest.org.

About D’Arrigo Bros. of New York
Family-owned and operated, D’Arrigo Bros. of New York, Inc. has served the New York Metropolitan area for over 50 years, offering a full line of the highest quality fruit and vegetable items available every day of the week. The company is located in a 75,000-square foot. facility in the Hunts Point Terminal Market in the Bronx. D’Arrigo takes pride in offering its customers the highest quality produce that can be found anywhere. To learn more, visit D’ArrigoNY.com

Brighter Bites Featured in Food Policy Community Spotlight

Posted on May 7, 2018 by -

The Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center shines a weekly spotlight on community organizations that are making an impact on the lives of New Yorkers through food equity, access, education, and sustainability through the Food Policy Community Spotlight Series. Brighter Bites was recently featured. Click here to learn more about our impact on New York and across the nation.

Brighter Bites in the Big Apple

Posted on September 22, 2017 by -

If you’ve been keeping up with Brighter Bites’s Facebook and Instagram feeds, you know that we have some exciting news we’re bursting to share. Drum roll please…

Brighter Bites is in New York City!

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Today marks our very first day of distribution in the Big Apple, where we’ll begin serving our tried and true nutrition education program to students and families of the Variety Boys and Girls Club of Queens. Led by our newest Program Director, Melanie Button, the Brighter Bites NYC team will bring the three-step Brighter Bites formula of fresh produce distribution, nutrition education, and a fun food experience to a brand new community.

New York is the fourth city to house Brighter Bites programming (after Houston, Dallas, and Austin) and the first city outside of Texas. This big step for Brighter Bites was taken in collaboration with City Harvest, a New York-based food rescuer and distributor, and D’Arrigo Bros. Co. of New York, a wholesale produce supplier in the New York metro area. This launch coincides with Brighter Bites’ 5th birthday, which we celebrated earlier this week. That’s five years of creating communities of health and over 14 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables distributed.

How ’bout them apples?