DECEMBER 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 23
PAULE PACHTER, CEO OF LONG ISLAND CARES FOOD FOR THOUGHT
BY CLAUDE SOLNIK
For nearly 14 years, Paule Pachter has
been the CEO of Long Island Cares,
which operates the Harry Chapin Food
Bank. Over the past year, as hunger
and food insecurity increased on Long
Island, Long Island Cares expanded.
We talked with Pachter about this persistent
problem, the organization Harry
Chapin founded just a year before his
death, and what’s being done to help
those in need, especially during the
holiday season.
How many people need food banks
on Long Island and is that number
increasing or decreasing?
It’s 287,000. That represents a 6% decrease
in the number of people when
you compare it to 2020. The numbers
for 2020 were skewed because of Covid.
We were assisting about 480,000 people
due to Covid.
How did you do that?
We did it and Island Harvest did it.
Other hunger-assistance organizations
did it. We were fortunate to have the
resources. If you look back at 2020,
people lined up in parking lots
to pick up emergency food.
Covid caught people off
guard. Nobody thought
they would go to a supermarket
and find
empty shelves or be
laid off or furloughed.
From March of 2020
through the end of
the year, in some
places we looked at
a 70% increase in the
number of people.
Who are Long Island’s hungry and
food insecure?
People have an image of what someone
struggling with hunger looks like. The
stereotypical image is a poor person,
a person from a minority community,
someone who doesn’t work because
they “don’t want to work” or can’t due
to health or a disability. You have to look
at who the people are.
And who are the people in need?
Sixty % of the people utilizing the
emergency food network are people
we might expect to have issues with
food insecurity. They may be permanently
unable to work due to health or
socioeconomic issues. They are eligible
for government entitlement programs
such as SNAP Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, public assistance.
These are people who don’t own homes.
They may live with two or three other
people.
Who are the other 40%?
They are Long Islanders, most who are
working, but not earning enough salary
to lift them out of poverty. These are
people who may make 10, 12, even 15
dollars an hour. Because of the cost of
living in our region, the astronomical
cost for rent, utilities, gas for your car,
car insurance, 40% of people using our
food network are Long Island’s working
poor. They cannot lift themselves out of
the cycle of poverty.
What do you mean by the “cycle?”
The cycle of poverty on Long Island
is diff erent from in most places in the
United States. Four or fi ve years ago,
the Long Island Association (LIA) did
a survey that found for a family of four
to live on Long Island in some comfort,
they have to earn $94,000. A family of
four earning $54,000 a year is eligible
or government entitlements on Long
Island, because they’re classifi ed as poor.
The group making more than $54,000,
earning $60K, $70K for a family of four,
those people are coming to the food
pantries.
"We seem to have
enough resources to
provide people with
a holiday meal."
How do you distribute the food and is
that changing?
For Long Island Cares, it’s changing.
Historically, food banks provided
the bulk of
the food that we secure,
whether privately, through donations
or contracts,
to organizations, pantries
and soup kitchens. That’s the focus of
our two government contracts. In
2009, Long Island Cares did a study of
agencies. We
do it every three years. We
found the majority of organizations we
support couldn’t or wouldn’t expand.
We started to open our own pantries
to increase distribution
of food to those who need
it the most. If you look at
Long Island Cares today,
we have eight locations.
We distribute food to
the community through
six. We have large
operations in Freeport,
Lindenhurst, Huntington
Station, Hampton Bays,
and our newest location
in Bethpage.
Why and when did you add the latest
location?
Bethpage opened last week. During the
height of Covid, we received $2.5 million
from the Town of Hempstead to open 18
temporary pop-up distribution centers
throughout Hempstead. One of the popup
distribution centers was in Bethpage.
We knew there were needs in Hicksville,
Levittown, Wantagh. We decided aft er the
temporary pop-ups were going to be closing
down, we would like to stay in Bethpage.
Is Bethpage different from other
locations?
Each satellite location is diff erent. Bethpage
is known as The Harry Chapin
Food Bank Essential Market, a boutique
model supermarket. You walk in, pick
food. We’ll have a nutritionist come in
once a week and do cooking demonstrations.
The food is free.
How has Covid complicated distributing
food?
Delivering to a senior housing program
now requires us to deliver the food to
the door to the apartment. There’s
no longer a community room where
people can come in and pick up. We
do more home deliveries. That’s been
a game changer. We also have mobile
food delivery to disabled veterans. And
we do deliveries to homeless enclaves.
We deliver food to an average of 800
homeless people basically living on the
street. That number doubled in the last
year from 400.
How are fi nancial donations doing?
Donations of money to food banks
across the country, not just Long Island
Cares and Long Island Harvest, are up
signifi cantly. Covid and all the press that
came with lines for food distribution hit
a nerve with Americans. Our average
donation in 2020 was roughly $85 per
person. Previously it was $40 or $50.
How do things look in terms of providing
holiday meals?
We seem to have enough resources to
provide people with a holiday meal. We
won’t be able to provide 15- or 16-pound
turkeys. The supply chain is still backed
up from Covid and the cost of food has
gone up signifi cantly. Last year, we were
able to purchase an average turkey of 14
pounds at about 79 cents a pound. Today
it’s $1.29 a pound. That will impact our
ability to donate as much as we have
in the past.
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