Operation Food USA LLC known as “operation Food” is focused on alleviating hunger. Our mission is “providing hope and resources for hunger vulnerable households and communities”. Present day, there is an unimaginable push by New York City and State officials to create a platform to feed the food insecure and pillar for mass reform. Under the Mayor of NYC leadership and guidance, agencies like NYC Small Business Services, DFTA Services and DOS GetFoodNYC program are changing the landscape.
Who Makes This Possible
Operation Food is the single most unique company in NYC to service its food insure. With a company that is Founded, and Majority owned by a 4th generation NYC woman whose family has been in food service and wholesale produce for over 80 years, there is no better procurement manger in town then Jennifer Doherty. Oversight of all trucking and Logistics is a 50-year-old NY company, 100% African American owned and now operated by the 3rd generation, Kendall Brock with minority ownership in Operation Food. On Government and Community relation, Evan Korn who previously served under two New York City (NYC) mayors starting out in the Mayor’s Community Assistance Unit as the Queens Unit Deputy Director then Special Assistant to the Commissioner and Director of Special Projects, later ascending up the ranks to serve as NYC Department Of Transportation’s (DOT) Deputy Manhattan Borough Commissioner and Acting Manhattan Borough Commissioner under then Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. During the months following 9/11, Evan was the mayor’s assist and ran day-to-day operational management of the city’s Family Assistance Center at the Lexington Avenue Armory and then at Pier 94, providing programmatic and legal assistance to families affected by the tragedy.
Ending Hunger
Operation Food view’s the organization’s mission as “to end hunger as a part of the overall community effort to alleviate poverty,” and yet, the demand for emergency food assistance continues to rise year after year. While most of the organization’s resources will be focused on the collection and distribution of food, we will also actively collaborate with other groups to focus on the broader issues of hunger and poverty. Through state-wide, regional, and local collaborations, Operation Food is now focused on finding solutions to hunger, even while we continue to provide food to those in immediate need. The primary reason for hunger and food insecurity is poverty. There is no lack of food, only inequitable distribution. Because many of our residents do not have enough money to buy food or cannot get to affordable food, they go hungry.
Operation Food can exercise a leadership role in creating this hunger-free community in three major ways. Self-sufficiency (for those in need) – To end hunger, we need to reduce the number of people in need by increasing people’s self-sufficiency.
Operation Food can play a critical role in this area by:
01
Working through Operation Food’s network of agencies to reach people with information and assistance beyond the distribution of food, including promoting healthy eating and other measures to improve health as a step to improved self-sufficiency
02
Identifying gaps in services within local communities and fostering collaborations to fill those gaps
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Bringing its resources and visibility to partner with other groups who are working on self-sufficiency issues. Engagement (of the larger community) - Creating a hunger-free community will be advanced by changing the conversation about hunger, building understanding of the reasons people are hungry and potential solutions, and motivating people to become personally involved in those solutions.
Operation Food can help by:
01
Increasing the public’s understanding of hunger and food insecurity
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Ensuring that food security issues become important agenda items for political, business, and other community leaders. Food Assistance (through Operation Food’s partner agencies) – Operation Food should ensure that there is an efficient and effective safety net of services so that no one goes without food.
03
Engaging people to work on addressing root causes of hunger.
Operation Food should work to create partnerships with local, nonprofit organizations to:
01
Maximize the ability for people in need to have access to good food provided in dignified ways through private agencies.
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Help nonprofit, service-providing agencies understand how they can be engaged in truly ending hunger. Tactics The tactics that Operation Food uses to achieve these strategic priorities will evolve over time and may vary by region or community (what works in an urban center may not work as well in the suburbs or rural communities).
03
Help people in need access federal and state programs that can help them with their food needs.
Tactics are expected to include:
01
Participation in regional or state-wide coalitions or collaborations targeted toward ending poverty or building self-sufficiency
02
Hunger Action Teams – Local collaborations that bring together service providers, government, schools, the faith and business community to identify gaps and duplications of services to better address the long term self-sufficiency of clients, in addition to the short-term distribution of food.
