Hunger on Long Island | Community Solidarity
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You're someone who wants take action to end hunger on Long Island. You know the stigma of hunger is alienating and lonesome. You know too many of our brothers and sisters in need of help get overlooked. They're avoided, or feared, by so many who can actually help. You may, or may not, have already realized that you have the ability to help. On this page, I'll show you how to do that. I'll teach you about hunger on Long Island and I'll show you how to end it.

Jon Stepanian, founder Community Solidarity

The Reality of Hunger on Long Island

Imagine needing food for your family. Your two part-time jobs don't pay enough for rent and groceries. Imagine working 60 hours a week on minimum wage. You don't qualify for food stamps because you make "too much to qualify"., but don't make enough to survive.

Imagine calling dozens of food pantries in your community and being told that you have to fill out endless forms and embarrassing surveys, or that you have to sit through a sermon if you'd like some canned goods and processed foods...

This is the experience of the tens of thousands of people who face hunger every day on Long Island. It's a grueling gauntlet of bureaucratic red tape. A process filled with dehumanizing surveys and interrogations. It's the sad reality for many struggling to survive on Long Island.

This bureaucratic system also affects many suffering from hunger across the country. Yet, on Long Island, the extreme costs of living exacerbate it. The gap between the rich and poor on Long Island is vast, so climbing out of poverty is a challenge for many.

How Community Solidarity Ends Hunger

Now imagine calling Community Solidarity. You're told to come on down for food. When you arrive at your first Food Share and see mountains of fresh organic produce. Thousands of pounds of plant-based groceries. Then volunteers ask what you'd like. They get you every you need. All the groceries you need for the week - healthy groceries. No paperwork, no embarrassing questions. No need to drive to different food pantries to collect what you need for a meal. 

At Community Solidarity food is a right. By volunteering, you can help uphold that right. No one should have to beg for food. No one should be denied healthy food and no one should feel alone in their struggle. By volunteering, you'll join a community of neighbors helping neighbors.

Read on to learn how Community Solidarity ends hunger. You can also click here on to learn more about hunger on Long Island. If you'd like to take action now, there are a few buttons below to help start you off.

Community Solidarity is America's largest vegetarian hunger relief organization. You can join us as we share vegan groceries and end hunger. You'll be helping to build a healthier community that lifts our neighbors out of poverty.

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When we turn a blind eye to our neighbors to languishing in poverty we turn a blind eye to our community. The hungry struggle day-to-day for food and waste their potential contribution to society. A hungry person's primary priority becomes where their next meal will come from. All their energy becomes focused on that goal. And as a community, we lose the benefits of their potential contributions.

People are not able to help their neighborhoods if they're always looking for food. They're hungry, they might have kids, and they have to eat.

This creates an endless cycle. Often their neighbors are in the same situation. Since everyone in poverty is trying to help themselves out of poverty, they have no time to help others. Those others have no time to help them because they're in the same situation.

Since no one is there to help each other, people become reliant on the bureaucratic social safety net. Then that safety-net alienates them even further. People struggling with hunger become disillusioned. Their neighbors aren't there for them. The safety-net their tax dollars pay for doesn't give them any long-term solution. Worse, that bureaucratic safety-net humiliates them whenever they seek its help.

This is the persistent system of hunger and poverty in America. A system where we waste the talents and spirits of millions. But that's not all we waste.

Besides, wasting the talents and skills of people in this country we waste over 51% of all the food we grow. Please, let this sink in.

As 182,000 people go hungry on Long Island tonight. Supermarkets on Long Island will be tossing out more than enough food to feed all those people.

There are over 9,000 supermarkets and farms on Long Island. Combined they waste over 27,000,000 pounds of food every night! That's enough to feed every hungry person 45 times over!

Supermarkets over order good food that ends up as surplus. This food gets wasted every night because there isn't a proper system in place to rescue it from the trash. Worse, food waste is a business expense, so when a store wastes food it's actually a tax write off!

People are going hungry on Long Island, and we have more than enough food to feed them. That's got to change, and Community Solidarity has the solution.

Community Solidarity rescues millions of pounds of food waste across Long Island. We then use that waste to feed tens of thousands of people in need.

We're able to do this because we've built a community around helping our neighbors. Anyone in need can come to our food share locations for food, and we will help them, no questions asked. No paperwork or forms or ID required. We treat people like people, and we share healthy organic groceries with anyone in need.

In turn, we invite anyone and everyone coming for food to take part in the process as well. People in need of groceries can organize a clothing drive with their neighbors. They can help grow food for local seniors in a community garden. They can help us rescue food from local supermarkets to help feed their fellow neighbors in need.

Our goal as an organization is to empower everyone to join in their community. We don't give handouts; food is a right. It's not ours to give. All people should have food.

We empower our neighbors to defend that right for everyone in their community. The best part is, it works. The more people we share groceries with; the more we empower. The more people we empower; the more participation we get in collecting groceries. The system continues on. We feed more people, who help us rescue more food, which lets us feed more people.

The solution to ending hunger on Long Island is to not waste the people suffering through it. The solution to ending hunger on Long Island is to empower the hunger. To empower all people to help each other out. The solution to hunger on Long Island is to build a stronger more united community.

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