8 THE QUEENS COURIER • OCTOBER 7, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Fast-growing Ozone Park food pantry delivers
an average of 40,000 pounds of food per week
BY KAYLA WONG
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
For the last 17 months, one food pantry
in Ozone Park has worked through rain
and shine, and grown to become one of
the largest all-volunteer non-funded food
pantries in New York City.
Every Saturday without fail,
volunteers have shown up for their community,
enduring through poor weather
conditions, working through holidays and
pulling from their own resources just to
serve the need in their community.
And the community’s response to
the pantry has been remarkable. On
Saturday, Sept. 25, as the noon start time
approached, the line wrapped around the
block as hundreds of people waited with
their empty shopping carts, some having
been there for hours.
The pantry was one of many
operations across Queens created in
response to the rampant COVID-19
pandemic-related food crisis.
What is now a large-scale operation
started from a simple delivery service
providing food for around 80 people.
As the need for food grew, organizations
such as Ozone Park Block Association
and Cityline Ozone Park Civilian Patrol
(COPCP) partnered to address the
problem.
When the pantry fi rst started in March,
they served around 100 families, but in
the wake of layoff s and shutdowns, they
began serving thousands of families.
During the height of the pandemic,
the pantry served approximately 2,000
people. Th is month, they are averaging
around 1,100 people, and passing out
approximately 40,000 pounds of food per
week.
For a while, there were no deliveries,
and volunteers had to go out every
day during the week to pick up food for
Saturday, according to COPCP’s social
media manager Daniel Hill.
“Now, we luckily get deliveries from
food banks, but in the very beginning,
we would drive to the other pantries
and take their scraps and whatever they
didn’t give out,” Hill said. “It was diffi -
cult at fi rst because we were seeing other
pantries in the area get favored by the
mayor’s offi ce, and they weren’t even using
all of the food.”
Before individuals reached the front of
the line, names and addresses are recorded
on a clipboard prior to being handed
a ticket to get in. Th e ticket system is
not only to regulate the line, but it also
provides the number of people served for
each Saturday. Th ose who are disabled are
allowed to enter fi rst and are given assistance
with their food, and there is a separate
line for seniors.
Aft er starting the food pantry, Ozone
Park Block Association President Sam
Esposito noticed that the majority of volunteers
were white or Hispanic, but didn’t
represent the rest of the diverse groups of
people they were serving.
“My goal was to bring people together,
so we started putting it up on Facebook
that we need volunteers, and the next
thing you know, we have white, Black,
Chinese, Guyanese, Bengali, Catholic,
Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, gay and straight,”
Esposito said. “It’s a family we’ve made,
and everybody here has learned to get
along with each other — something we
never did in this neighborhood because it
was always us versus them.”
While the food pantry was created
in response to the pandemic, there was
always a need for it in the community,
but it was “simply ignored,” according
to Iqbal Ali, president of Cityline Ozone
Park Civilian Patrol. He felt that certain
ethnic communities were being left out of
the conversation, such as the Bangladeshi
community.
“Th e diversity was there, but I felt
like certain communities were always
underserved,” Ali said. “Now we have
seats in diff erent organizations, we work
with the NYPD, we work with elected
offi cials and we work with all the boards.
Th e Bangladeshis, the Spanish, the Asians,
you name it — everybody is sitting there
working together.”
Diversity and unity in spite of cultural
and religious diff erences is a big part
of the pantry’s success, and they want the
food they provide to also refl ect that.
Th e volunteers lay out the food on the
table and allow people to pick and choose
what they want to take. Because there is
such a diverse group of people on the line,
not everyone can eat the same thing.
“We have to focus on what we have
and what each community can eat,” said
Mohammad Khan, the pantry’s executive
director. “Th e Muslim community cannot
have the meat because it’s not halal, which
we only sometimes can get. We also serve
a large Hindi community as well, and they
can’t have beef or pork, so we have to cater
to that.”
As a Muslim herself, Souad Bouhayat
is one of the volunteers who takes care of
the halal food selection. Aft er standing
in the line for food during the pandemic,
she was touched by what the organizations
were doing and decided to come
back as a volunteer.
“We start creating a relationship with
the people who come into the pantry, and
they start cooking for us, sharing with us
what they take from the pantry, and I’m
very touched to know that we can make a
diff erence in a certain way by giving a bag
of food,” Bouhayat said.
As you walk the line, you might hear
people speaking a dozen diff erent languages,
but there is always a translator for
those who need it.
“We have a total of 15 languages the
volunteers speak,” Kahn said. “We have
English, Bengali, Spanish, French, Arabic,
Guyanese, Italian, Hindi, Chinese, Haitian
and many more. We make up a large
language community here, so we always
have someone to help.”
While the operation today has nine
food pantries that supply them, along
with GrowNYC and Food Bank, all other
expenses — such as gas, transportation,
supplies and compensation — are covered
by Esposito and Ali.
Even though some organizations deliver
to the pantry, volunteers still have
to pick up food throughout the week
from various outlets, and it’s no diff erent
on Saturday — volunteers are constantly
leaving throughout the day to pick up
food and restock their supplies to ensure
there is enough for everyone. Organizers
are spending anywhere from $1,200
to $1,500 from their own pockets on a
weekly basis.
Th e manager of the pantry, Patricia
Raghunandan, said it is diffi cult for
organizers and volunteers to solely
depend on other pantries and their own
personal resources to get things done, but
volunteers willingly sacrifi ce their time
and resources for free.
“When you hear these personal stories
of the people on the line, there’s nothing
that would stop you from getting up in the
morning, coming here and doing it day
aft er day,” Raghunandan said. “We get it
done because those people need it.”
Th e Ozone Park food pantry opens
at noon every Saturday at Digby Place
between Rockaway Boulevard and 97th
Avenue (83-10 Rockaway Blvd.).
No RSVP is necessary to stand in line
or to volunteer.
Photo by Kayla Wong
A volunteer-led non-funded food pantry in Ozone Park serves thousands of community members
per week.
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