CITY HALL – City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn today announced that the City Council has secured over $10,000 in additional turkeys to help three major New York City food organizations provide Thanksgiving meals to families in all five boroughs. At the Council’s request, Ron Perelman has generously donated $10,000 worth of turkeys to City Harvest, the Food Bank for New York City, and the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. In addition, Howard Koeppel has graciously provided another 1,000 lbs of turkey to City Harvest. All together, the turkeys will provide food for roughly 5,500 New Yorkers this Thanksgiving.

“Every year at this time, the City Council reaches out to food pantries, soup kitchens, and other hunger organizations to find out what they might need with winter and the holidays approaching,” said Speaker Christine C. Quinn. “This year, they told us they were in need of additional turkeys, and we set out to find donors who were willing to help. We are incredibly grateful for the generosity of Ron Perelman and Howard Koeppel in answering the City Council’s call. Every donation makes a real difference in the lives of hungry New Yorkers, and I encourage everyone this Thanksgiving season to donate what you can, and help make sure everyone can feed their families.”

Now serving New York City for more than 25 years, City Harvest is the world’s first food rescue organization, dedicated to feeding the city’s hungry men, women, and children. This year, City Harvest will collect over 25 million pounds of excess food from all segments of the food industry, including restaurants, grocers, corporate cafeterias, manufacturers, and farms. This food is then delivered free of charge to nearly 600 community food programs throughout New York City using a fleet of trucks and bikes as well as volunteers on foot. Each week, City Harvest helps over 260,000 hungry New Yorkers find their next meal.

Food Bank For New York City’s mission is to end hunger by organizing food, information and support for community survival and dignity. Working to end food poverty and increase access to affordable, nutritious food for low-income New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs, the Food Bank’s initiatives focus on direct services, food sourcing and distribution, nutrition and health education, financial empowerment, disaster relief and policy and research.

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) represents the more than 1,200 nonprofit soup kitchens and food pantries in New York City and the more than 1.3 million low-income New Yorkers who are forced to use them. The Coalition works to meet the immediate food needs of low-income New Yorkers and enact innovative solutions to help them move “beyond the soup kitchen” to self-sufficiency.

To find out more about ways you can help, visit http://www.nycservice.org/.