20 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • DECEMBER 2020
CORNER OFFICE
ISLAND HARVEST FOOD BANK CEO RANDI SHUBIN DRESNER
FOOD FOR THOUGHT BY CLAUDE SOLNIK
As CEO of Island Harvest Food Bank,
Randi Shubin Dresner leads an organization
that provides hundreds of
thousands of meals annually. They have
been busier than ever amid COVID-19.
We talked with her about hunger on
Long Island and what’s being done to
help.
Did demand rise during the
pandemic? Within weeks our
business increased 500 percent
as far as purchasing.
We pivoted and changed
our programs to accommodate
that. We did more
than 1,000 events distributing
food across Long Island
between March and
the end of June at schools,
in communities, and big
distribution sites at
parking lots. We
partnered with
Nassau County.
We distributed
to over 20,000
residents through a Nassau County
contract alone.
Has Island Harvest changed due to
COVID-19 and how? Until March, we
were a food bank providing food and
support and services to individuals
in the community and doing a lot of
our work through a member network
of nonprofit community-based organizations.
We were helping about
300,000 people in all and
distributing about 10
million pounds of food
and other services.
We helped people
with SNAP outreach
and enrollment,
nutrition education,
job training
programs, food
safety programs.
When
March 9 hit,
we pivoted
to open
our emergency
resource
center. A hundred percent of our work
changed to be responsive to the needs
of the community.
How does Island Harvest get food?
Island Harvest before March depended
on donated food. About 85
percent of our product was donated.
The remainder was purchased from
retailers, wholesalers, distributors
and in small part from the community.
On March 9, we pivoted. Almost
instantaneously our food donation
dried up completely. Supermarkets
were overwhelmed from the community
coming in, getting food because
of the pandemic.
“We don’t believe we’ll ever go back to where we
So how did you get food once
COVID-19 hit? It took a little time for
food banks to make connections with
farmers and producers with the support
of the federal government and,
in our case, New York State and Gov.
Cuomo. It took a couple of months for
this to get in place. Gov. Cuomo awarded
the food banks across the state $25
million to buy New York State-grown
product from farmers and producers.
We got over $700,000 in funds. We
needed that food quickly and we got it
in tractor trailer loads. They brought
it to us. We didn’t have to pick it up.
How do you keep
your own people
safe? We instituted
new protocols. We
identified our assets
— our staff, our volunteers
and our food.
Only a select number
of people are allowed
in our warehouses.
We did distributions
outside. We got a
large tent donated
that is permanently
in our parking lot.
And we do a lot of
work outside under
the tent safely. We
identified staff who
could work full time remotely or hybrid
coming into the office a few days
a week. We also identified people who
would just work in the field and not
come back into the office.
How do you and others at Island Harvest
handle this personally? Emergency
work is very hard physically
and emotionally. We started with an
adrenaline rush that fueled our first
couple of months. Then exhaustion
followed for a few months. Then a
realization that this is what our work
will look like for the foreseeable future.
We are essential workers, Island
Harvest Food Bank staff.
Where do things stand today? We
don’t believe we’ll ever go back to
where we were as an organization
before. We’re a different organization
now because of the response work we
provided. We brought new programs
into our organization and we’ll continue
those.
Are you seeing a return to normal?
It’s a different kind of normal. We
have a different work plan now.
We’re doing a lot of direct delivery
to people’s houses. People are
homebound. They have COVID and
disabilities. We opened up some direct
delivery programs. We fielded
15,000 phone calls between March
and June. We had to learn how to
field those calls. There’s an increase
in calls from people who need help
and we can help.
What are you seeing and doing
for Thanksgiving and Christmas?
We are running our regular turkey
and trimming collection campaign,
collecting turkeys and funds and
trimmings from the community.
This year demand is up. Because of
the pandemic, most people aren’t
having large family gatherings.
We’re asking the community for an
increase in donations and smaller
turkeys.
Island Harvest Food Bank CEO Randi Shubin Dresner feeds food-insecure Long Islanders.
were as an organization before.”
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
