City Harvest delivering food to Masbia Soup Kitchen as part of last year’s Passover Food Drive. Photo: City Harvest

City Harvest, one of New York’s largest food rescue organization, started on Monday its annual city-wide Passover Food Drive to collect kosher food items and give them to Jewish families around New York City who are celebrating the upcoming holiday.

City Harvest will deliver all food collected during the Passover Food Drive to 24 kosher food programs and organizations across the five boroughs including Masbia, the non-profit soup kitchen network and food pantry, and the Bnai Raphael Chesed Organization, which has a network of food pantries. The Passover Food Drive will run until April 17.

The annual Passover Food Drive is “a crucial way we are able to help ensure Jewish New Yorkers who are experiencing food insecurity have access to kosher food for the holiday,” said City Harvest CEO Jilly Stephens. “Every year, City Harvest delivers thousands of pounds of kosher food to our 24 kosher food program partners and this year is no different as observant families that keep kosher continue to struggle to put food on their tables.”

Those interested in participating in the Passover Food Drive can organize a traditional food drive by collecting canned or non-perishable sealed or packaged kosher foods — such as tuna, salmon, sardines, peanut butter and beans — that will then be picked up by one of City Harvest’s trucks and delivered to kosher food pantries. Another option is to create an online food drive page where participants can purchase fresh produce and non-perishable kosher items to be delivered directly to City Harvest’s warehouse.

Last year, more than 23,000 pounds of kosher food were collected and delivered to kosher food programs and organizations in New York through City Harvest’s Passover Food Drive. Since 1999, when City Harvest began its kosher food rescue program, it has collected and delivered 84.5 million pounds of kosher food.

According to the UJA Federation of New York, 30 percent of Jewish families across New York live near or below the poverty line and kosher food prices are up 16 percent. Average monthly visits to New York City food pantries and soup kitchens remain up more than 70 percent since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So many of our neighbors are struggling to make ends meet as they contend with record-high prices for food and other basic necessities,” said Ira Nathel, president of Nathel & Nathel, which is a sponsor of this year’s Passover Food Drive. “Every Jewish New Yorker should have fresh, nutritious, and culturally-relevant food on their tables for Passover.”

City Harvest also organized a kosher food drive for the Jewish high holidays in September and October 2022 and collected more than 24,800 pounds of food for Jewish families.