Feeding Body, Mind and Spirit since 1982

A Message From Executive Director Sister Caroline Tweedy, RSM

Dear Friends,


The first quarter of the new fiscal year has been a challenging one at best! During the first quarter we saw a 64% increase in the number of meals distributed from our soup kitchen and mobile unit, a 23% increase in our total meal distribution and a 23% increase in the numbers of senior served. We now have more than 8,000 families registered for our food pantry with an average of 66,000 visits over the course of a year serving more than 192,000 people alone. What an incredible increase given the times!


This past month the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health outlined 5 pillars to ending hunger by:


  • Pillar 1: Improving food access and affordability making it easier for everyone to access and afford food. This includes expanding eligibility for and increasing participation in food assistance programs and improving transportation to places where food is available.
  • Pillar 2: help integrate nutrition and health by prioritizing the role of nutrition and food security in overall health, including disease prevention and management, and ensuring that our health care system addresses the nutrition needs of all people.

  • Pillar 3: seeks to empower all people to make and have access to healthy choices by fostering environments that enable all people to easily make informed healthy choices, increase access to healthy food, encourage healthy workplace and school policies, and invest in public messaging and education campaigns that are culturally appropriate and resonate with specific communities.
  • Pillar 4: seeks to support physical activity for all by making it easier for people to be more physically active (in part by ensuring that everyone has access to safe places to be active), increase awareness of the benefits of physical activity, and conduct research on and measure physical activity and finally.
  • Pillar 5: focuses on enhancing nutrition and food security research by improving nutrition metrics, data collection, and research to inform nutrition and food security policy, particularly on issues of equity, access, and disparities.


These 5 pillars outline comprehensive and constructive ways to move toward a healthier tomorrow for all of us. At Bread and Life we will continue to promote healthier food options and access to better health through our partnership with Care for the Homeless. In the words of Stuart Duncan, “If we are not supporting each other, we are missing a very valuable opportunity to become stronger together.”


Believe it or not the holidays will be here before you know it. As we prepare for Sponsor A Family, I hope you will join with me in supporting this 26th Annual Campaign. Your support will ensure that no one in the community goes hungry and that every child has a happy Christmas.


As always, I remain grateful to everyone who supports our efforts and joins with us in fighting hunger in our community. Thank you to our donors, board, volunteers and staff who make what we do every day so incredibly worthwhile.


With gratitude, 

Sr. Caroline Tweedy, RSM

Executive Director

The campaign is nearly at its goal.

Help us FILL THE TRUCK!

Our Fill The Truck campaing will end in just a few short days! Join us in taking action against hunger in NYC this fall and support St. John's Bread & Life's Fill the Truck Food Drive!


Bread & Life continues to tirelessly serve every person who comes to our doors needing a hot meal or help to feed their family. Our Truck, made possible by the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, helps us bring mobile markets to neighborhoods across Brooklyn and Queens, and provide food to 20+ partner organizations who need our food and expertise to serve thousands of families each month.

Donate Now!

Our new Mobile Soup Kitchen (MSK) is a customized, energy-efficient food truck serving over 1,600 nutritious hot meals and providing outreach services 5 days a week to New York City’s most impoverished communities in Williamsburg, Coney Island, Brownsville, East New York, Woodside, and The Rockaways.


The MSK is the mobile extension of St John’s Bread & Life, reaching out to families and individuals who do not have easy access to food and other social services.

Partner Spotlight

As Bread & Life continues to face unprecedented demand for our services, our friends at Amazon.com have provided a major contribution to bolster our emergency food program. Amazon’s incredible support will directly provide nutritious meals and much-needed pantry food items to thousands of individuals and families in New York. Thank you, Amazon!

Stop & Shop supports Bread & Life!

OUR SUPPORTERS

The Hyde and Watson Foundation's support which will provide much needed renovations and improvements to our facility.

Volunteer Appreciation & Opportunities

We are so thankful for the incredible indiviudual and group volunteers who have made a tremendous impact here at Bread & Life in the month of October. Below are some highlights!


We are currently taking applications for new volunteers! Help us make a difference in the lives of our neighbors by preparing meals in our kitchen or packing pantry bags! Individual and Group sign-up is available! 

Volunteer at Bread & Life

Rethink Food is an organization that is dedicated to bridging the gap between perfectly good food that goes to waste and the demand for meals that many of our food-insecure neighbors face.


This wonderful group of dedicated volunteers can often be found working in our kitchen, preparing and packaging meals for our guests. They have also faithfully donated several pans of hot food twice a week for many years to stock our Mobile Soup Kitchen (MSK),=.

St. John's University student volunteers are regular faces at Bread & Life. We appreciate the extraordinary efforts of our newest SJU Ozanam Scholars students who regularly volunteer every school day throughout the entire semester.


SJU's Ozanam Scholars Program provides a platform for students to critically examine the systems that perpetuate poverty and take action to advance social justice through academic scholarship, Vincentian service, and global citizenship throughout college and beyond. The program develops students to become social justice advocates and responsible citizens in their local and global communities.

St. Edmund Preparatory High School is a Roman Catholic college preparatory school for young men and women. These wonderful students prepared and packed pantry bags to be handed to our guests and stocked food items.

Volunteer at Bread & Life
Donate Now!
or text HUNGER to 44321

For volunteering, contact:

Renelle Merstil at rmerstil@breadandlife.org.

Instagram  Facebook  Twitter  Linkedin